This course requires you to log 10 hours of clinical experience in an elementary school classroom with a certified public school teacher. It is your responsibility to make arrangements with the school district, and teacher for this clinical experience. Letters and information are included in Resources and Materials to help you with this.

To complete this course, you must be registered with the Family Care Safety Registry. Failure to register by Wednesday of the first week of class will result in your removal from the course. If you have questions regarding this requirement, please contact Jane Bethel, jbethel@centralmethodist.edu. ONLY contact Jane Bethel with questions about the Family Care Safety Registry.  You must contact the instructor of this course if you have any other questions, including questions about your practicum placement.  Contact information for your instructor is located on the Faculty Information portion of this course. 

Clay, Marie. (2019). An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement (4th ed). Heinemann. ISBN: 978-0-325-11251-0

Clay, Marie. Running Records for Classroom Teachers (2nd ed.). Heinemann, 2017. ISBN: 978-0-325-09279-9

Fountas, Irene C. & Gay Su Pinnell. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency: Thinking, Talking, and Writing About Reading, K-8 - With DVD. Heinemann, 2006. ISBN: 978-0-325-00308-5      *Please note: a DVD comes with a new copy of the textbook, but it is not required for the course.

Basic foundations of reading development. Includes current research, theories, techniques, and materials that meet both individual and group needs in oral and written language. Emphasis on the integration of the language arts: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Developing and sharing instructional methodology for diverse students is integral to this course. This course includes 10 clock hours of clinical experiences. 4 credit hours.  Prerequisite: ED103

1. Experience and record classroom language strategies for individuals, pairs, and groups.
2. Explore methods and materials teachers of young children can use to improve the reading ability of their students.
3. Examine and discuss literacy and learning theories applicable to young students.
4. Provide information about the ways societal, cultural, cognitive, psychological and physical factors affect learning to read and write for young students and how teachers can help mitigate the effects of these factors.
5. Engage in and develop critical thinking strategies and learn ways of teaching critical thinking skills.
6. Teach students to utilize instructional media as learning and teaching tools.
7. Employ research skills while learning about and applying knowledge of the writing process to the writing of papers about literacy instruction for young students.
8. Read, discuss and apply theory and research from professional literature to teaching practice.
9. Examine curricular standards using Show-Me Standards in identifying learning strategies.
10. Apply emergent language theories to the development of a reading and writing program to meet the needs of diverse learners.
11. Examine textbooks and related resources to the teaching of reading and writing.
12. Observe and interact with young children reading and writing and document the learning process.
13. Observe and interview teachers about reading and writing to explore curricular models.
14. Identify a philosophy for teaching of reading and writing and develop a plan encompassing the components of research based literacy teaching.

This course meets the following MoSPE objectives: 1C1, 1C2, 2C5, 2C6, 3C1, 4C3, and 6C3.