In this self-paced course, we will work on how to improve literacy outcomes for older students who are reading below grade level. Participants in this course will have the opportunity to learn the research behind literacy accelerators that can propel reading progress, consider how to support students in rebuilding their academic confidence, and gain practical skills for how to implement these ideas to support students in regular classroom settings.
Primary Audience: 4-12 Secondary Educators and all who support their work.
Course Goals
Learn the importance of Automatic Word Recognition and what skills are its prerequisites
Understand the role of improving reading fluency in improving skills and confidence
Think through how to accelerate vocabulary acquisition and knowledge gains for your older students
Understand the specific ways access to close reading can cement these gains
Understand writing, both as a tool to support reading and as a tool to build student understanding of themselves and the world
This Course Includes:
Laying the Foundations
By the end of the module, you will:
Understand the elements of the reading accelerators
Gain a visceral understanding of what it feels like to be a dysfluent reader
Understand the sources of reading difficulties and how they impact older students
Word Recognition and Reading Fluency: the Building Blocks of Confident Literacy
By the end of the module, you will:
Understand how the different parts of early reading fit impact one another
See how supports for not-yet-mastered early reading skills can be integrated into regular classroom instruction
See modeling and practice these new acceleration skills in a low stakes way before you try them with students
Growing Vocabulary and Growing Knowledge: Helping Students Grow as Readers
By the end of the module, you will:
Get a sense of how tightly linked growing vocabulary and increasing knowledge are
Understand the two primary ways to grow both and what each contributes to accelerating literacy
Have concrete models for accelerating growth in both areas in your work with students
The Rest of Reading Comprehension: Habits and Practices of Confident, Successful Readers
By the end of the module, you will:
Learn what “standard of coherence” is and its importance for reading success.
Understand how to develop a standard of coherence in your students
Learn how to scaffold access to complex text for all your students through close reading.
Understand the potency of close reading for building student confidence and success.
Writing as a Tool to Support Reading and Build Student Understanding of Themselves and the World
By the end of the module, you will:
Experience the feelings of a student who struggles with writing
Understand the key skills that contribute to proficient writing.
Understand the relationship between reading and writing.
Recognize research-based instructional moves that can support writing development in all classrooms.
Recognize tools that support multilingual learners in various stages of their development of written English.
This recording is of an informal Q&A held with the course creators, David and Meredith Liben. They answered questions from course participants about the research underlying the course content and provided advice on implementation of course content.
This recording is of an informal Q&A held with one of the course creators, David Liben. He answered questions from past and current course participants about intervention programs, daily procedures that help with improving students’ reading ability, and data on students’ reading progress, among other topics. At the end, he shared a set of resources, including about a Humanities Accelerator course that can be piloted in the middle or high school years that is designed to address the challenge of time, student motivation, science of reading, building knowledge and vocabulary, and fluency.
This recording is of an informal Q&A held with course co-creator, David Liben. He answered questions that were submitted by IROS participants about the course content and provided advice on implementation of course content.
