Course Credit 15 Hours/PDPs
With an option to add one (1) graduate credit from Fitchburg State University
This course provides educators with the foundational knowledge and tools necessary to implement effective reading comprehension instruction. The course will follow a book study format; Nancy Hennessey’s The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning From Text is the required textbook for the course. Although the course is not specifically aimed at supporting students with disabilities, a heavy emphasis will be placed on the processes and factors that allow students to understand what they read, and the instructional techniques and activities that support all learners in developing their vocabulary, sentence comprehension, understanding of text structure, background knowledge, and inference-making skills. Participants will read from the textbook and complete related assignments connecting the content to students in their settings, specifically those who struggle with reading comprehension. As a result of the learning experiences in this course, participants will:
- Understand the processes involved in reading comprehension
- Learn about and understand how to implement Hennessey’s “blueprint” for teaching reading comprehension
- Learn and apply techniques for supporting students’ vocabulary development, sentence comprehension, understanding of text structure, background knowledge, and inference-making skills in the classroom
The course is divided into six, self-paced modules:
- Overview of Reading Comprehension – This module provides an overview of the foundational theory and research necessary to understand how reading comprehension develops and the major processes involved. Participants are also introduced to Hennessey’s instructional “blueprint” outlining how and what to teach to support students in developing strong reading comprehension skills.
- Vocabulary Knowledge – This module explains the important link between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension and details direct and indirect strategies for building students’ word knowledge.
- Sentence-Level Comprehension – This module describes important sentence-level structures impacting reading comprehension, as well as how to support students in developing their syntactic skills.
- Text Structures – This module introduces specific instructional techniques to help students identify and navigate a variety of text structures (e.g., narrative, informational) to support their comprehension.
- Background Knowledge – This module examines the importance of background knowledge in reading comprehension and provides strategies for building student background knowledge.
- Inference-Making Skills – This module focuses on different types of inferences and describes instructional strategies for supporting students in making inferences in texts.
Each module will follow a book study format:
- Reading from required textbook and additional resources within the course, such as podcasts, webinars, videos, etc.
- Quiz to assess learning
- Opportunities to discuss and reflect on course content with peers
- Application of the course content via the completion of a related assignment
Specific Assignments:
- Pre and Post-Assessments: These ungraded questionnaires will be completed at the beginning and end of the course in order to self-assess knowledge and application of course content.
- Quizzes: The quizzes will assess comprehension of the content from the required reading. The quizzes will be automatically graded within the course platform. Although participants must earn an 80% or higher to move on to the next section of the course, there are unlimited attempts allowed.
- Discussion Posts: The discussions will require participants to post an initial response and reply to at least one other post. These tasks will be assessed using specific rubrics.
- Assignments: The assignments in each module will require participants to put theory into practice as they read and follow the specific directions, and use examples provided as a guideline for format, length, and quality of writing. These tasks will be assessed using specific rubrics.
Materials
The following text is required for all participants:
Graduate Credit
There is an option to add one (1) graduate credit to this 6-week course from Fitchburg State University. Graduate credit is optional; the cost is $210 and the non-refundable payment is made directly to Fitchburg. The timeline to opt into graduate credit is firm and cannot be accepted late. Details about the optional graduate credit will be embedded in the “Course Welcome” module of the online course so you can make your final decision at that time.
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