Overview

This course will help middle school teachers learn about comprehension strategies that students need to apply in order to comprehend a variety of text types. Participants will explore the challenges students commonly experience with different types of text, strategies employed by successful readers, and instructional approaches to support students in developing reading comprehension strategies. Throughout the course, participants will gather ideas about designing a lesson plan that focuses on developing students’ use of comprehension strategies. Participants will leave this course with many new strategies and resources for fostering the reading comprehension of their students.

Goals and Products

This online course will enable participants to

• Deepen their understanding of the middle school students’ reading development and effective literacy instruction in grades 6-8
• Deepen their understanding of strategies students use to comprehend text
• Identify students’ use of specific comprehension strategies
• Identify effective methods for teaching students comprehension strategies
• Deepen their understanding of the demands of diverse genres
• Develop lesson plans for teaching strategies for strategies-based instruction and for comprehending expository text
• Deepen their understanding of the demands of online text
• Analyze the ways in which technology can be used to foster students’ reading comprehension

Format and Requirements

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

The outline for the course is as follows:

As a final project, participants will consider the many concepts and strategies covered in this course—direct instruction of strategies, teaching with diverse text types, and using technology to support instruction—and develop a lesson plan that will best address their students’ reading comprehension needs.

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 will help participants meet the following NCTE standards:

Standard 1: Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.

Standard 2: Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.

Standard 3: Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

Standard 11: Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

Standard 12: Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

In addition, this course will help participants meet the following title="http://cnets.iste.org/teachers/t_stands.html"
href="http://cnets.iste.org/teachers/t_stands.html">ISTE Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for All Teachers:

• II. PLANNING AND DESIGNING LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND EXPERIENCES.
  - Teachers plan and design effective learning environments and experiences supported by technology.
• - Identify and locate technology resources and evaluate them for accuracy and suitability.

• V. PRODUCTIVITY AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE.
  - Teachers use technology to enhance their productivity and professional practice.
• - Use technology resources to engage in ongoing professional development and lifelong learning.

Reproduced with permission from Education Development Center, Inc.,
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