EDU-EDU8612 - Explicit Instruction in Elementary Reading

Course Description

This teacher professional development course will teach you how to implement the model of explicit instruction into your classroom, for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. In this course, you will learn about the explicit instruction model and how this research-backed method can improve reading in your students. You will learn what reading behaviors and skills to focus on in your lessons and how to build a plan that aligns with your students' goals.  You will also discover effective ways to measure student progress using various assessments.  Using a variety of tools provided in this course, you will be able to build an explicit teaching strategy for immediate implementation in your classroom.

Course Outline

• Receive an overview of reading assessments and progression of basic reading skills, then analyze the common reading behaviors you can expect to see at each elementary grade level.

• Learn the meaning of explicit instruction, how you can utilize this method to teach reading skills, and what explicit instruction lessons can look like in an elementary classroom.
• Learn how to identify a reading behavior or skill you can teach in a future or current lesson and how to appropriately group students.

• Learn how to model a new skill, then how to design activities to support students through guided practice.
• Then, learn how to plan for what guided practice might look like in a lesson of your content area and grade level.

• Learn about activities you can create and methods for implementing them into the independent practice portion of your lesson.
• Then, reflect on what independent practice might look like in a lesson of your content area and grade level.

• Analyze various assessments that can be utilized during and after explicit instruction to ensure instructional goals are met. Then reflect on how to select an appropriate assessment for a lesson of your content area and grade level.

• Using the sample provided, build your explicit instruction lesson plan for an upcoming lesson.

• Get ideas on how to implement the concepts into your classroom, find a list of online resources that provide explicit instruction ideas and strategies, and read the research behind explicit instruction that supports this evidence- based professional development

Learner Outcomes

• Understand how to choose reading behaviors and skills to focus on within your explicit reading instruction
• Evaluate the structure of explicit reading instruction and compare it to classroom scenarios
• Create a plan for explicit instruction in your classroom
• Build a plan for assessing student reading progress

Notes