Story of EDU 318: Elementary Reading
Teaching educators the art and science of literacy instruction takes dedication and hard work. At the time of my hire the Foundations of Reading test was new to the state of Connecticut.
The pressure was on to align course content with the National Reading Programs big five-phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
EDU 318 was elementary reading for the early childhood students. While the class was geared for grades Pre k-3 teaching the course content had to cover up to sixth grade to prepare students for the Foundations of Reading test.
Innovations
I introduced a five lesson portfolio that had students covering each of the five components to literacy instruction. These lesson plans helped align students understanding of pedagogy and assessment with reading instruction.
I also began to record my lectures so students could access them later. They could log on to YouTube and catch up on what was taught. These resources helped prepare students for the classroom.
The basic weekly schedule was introducing the science behind a topic. evaluating examples of teaching using videos posted to YouTube, and then practicing classroom techniques.
Next Steps
EDU 318 no longer exists. It was decided that instead of having one reading class for early childhood education majors and one for elementary majores it would be more beneficial to develop a two track course.
I assisted Dr. Dickinson, who took the lead on the project, to map out what an Emergent Reading and a Reading class would look like. These classes now exist as EDU 305 and EDU 306.
