It Is ... Inspired Teaching Inspiring Students

Helping Struggling Readers Improve Comprehension
(Middle/High)

Overview

This course focuses specifically on supporting the academic development of students who are competent decoders but who struggle to understand the meaning of what they read. We will explore the different types of comprehension difficulties students may face and will introduce a number of research-based strategies to improve comprehension skills. Instructional strategies will focus on building vocabulary skills, using teacher modeling, having students work collaboratively, and building comprehension monitoring skills. As a final project, participants will design and implement a lesson plan focused on improving students' reading comprehension.

Goals and Products

This online course will enable participants to

1. Identify the different kinds of comprehension difficulties students may experience.
2. Understand and apply techniques for improving student comprehension through teacher modeling, peer-to-peer work and independent reading.
3. Understand and apply techniques for improving student comprehension through teacher modeling, peer-to-peer work and independent reading.
4. Explore strategies for helping struggling readers to become more engaged with text, more independent as readers and more proficient at finding ways to monitor their reading.
5. As a final product, participants will create a lesson plan for struggling readers using the knowledge they have gained from the session.

Format and Requirements

This course is divided into six one-week sessions which each include readings, an activity and an online discussion among course participants. The time for completing each session is estimated to be two to four hours.

The outline for the course is as follows:

In the first session, participants will be introduced to the components of comprehension and will learn about different types of comprehension difficulties students may have. Sessions Two focuses on building vocabulary to enhance reading comprehension. Sessions Three, Four and Five explore a variety of strategies for improving students' comprehension, specifically teacher modeling, collaborative strategies, and independent reading strategies. Finally, in Session Six, participants will create a lesson plan to use with struggling comprehenders in the classroom.

Final Project Template: Participants will use the Comprehension Lesson Plan Template to create a lesson plan based on the strategies and concepts they have explored throughout the course.

Prerequisites

This is an introductory course for teachers, technology specialists, curriculum specialists, professional development specialists, or other school personnel. Participants are expected to have regular access to computers. In addition, participants should be proficient with using email, browsing the Internet, and navigating to computer files.

Content and Technology Standards

This course, Helping Struggling Readers Improve Comprehension, will help participants meet the ISTE Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for All Teachers, especially Standards II, III, IV, and V.

This course will also help teachers enable their students to meet Information Literacy Standards, especially Standards I, II and III.

Reproduced with permission from Education Development Center, Inc.,
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