Strengthening Content Comprehension with Science of Reading Principles
(Grades 6-12) / Flex Course
PDI Course Number: 158T02 / UCSD Course Number: EDUC42591
Course Description
Do your students struggle to absorb, understand, and remember the content material from your course? Are you searching for evidence-based strategies that help students build their overall comprehension? This online course for teachers takes a deep dive into a variety of best practices based on the science of reading to help middle and high school educators guide their students to greater comprehension, regardless of the content they teach. The course begins with an in-depth overview of the science of reading — what it is and what it means to 6-12 teachers. From there, teachers delve into the connection between comprehension and critical thinking. Teachers will explore key strategies to increase their students’ background knowledge so that they can successfully comprehend academic, subject matter, and indirect vocabulary across a variety of classroom scenarios. Teachers will understand how a student’s verbal reasoning skills (or the lack thereof) can affect their ability to make inferences and connections across fiction, poetry, and nonfiction texts, and they explore a variety of research-based strategies to build and support these verbal reasoning skills. The course concludes by exploring a variety of formative and summative assessment options to further support and drive interventions forward. By the end of this continuing education course, teachers will feel more confident and successful in their quest to embed best practices based on reading science principles to help students better comprehend a variety of texts across all subjects. This online professional development course is worth 3 ⅓ semester units/5 quarter units (50 hours of training) from University of California San Diego (UCSD) Division of Extended Studies. For detailed information on receiving university credit for your PDI professional development course, visit our credit page.
Need help? Kimya Nabavi, PDI Program Coordinator, is ready to assist.
This course is worth 3 ⅓ semester units or 5 quarter units of graduate-level credit from UCSD.
You have up to one year from the date you are enrolled to complete a flex course.
View the online course syllabus.
Print our customized course approval form to share with your school district.
TOPICAL OUTLINE
UCSD Course Number: EDUC42591
Unit One
- An Overview of the Science of Reading
- Student Comprehension: What Does It Mean?
- The Critical Role of Critical Thinking
- Assignment #1: Write an autobiography
- Test #1
Unit Two
- Background Knowledge as Engagement into the Content
- Diving Deep into Themes
- Building Background Knowledge Before Introducing the Text
- Assignment #2: Article reflection
- Test #2
Unit Three
- Academic Vocabulary in Comprehension
- Subject Matter Vocabulary in Comprehension
- Indirect Vocabulary Instruction
- Assignment #3: Share your expertise
- Test #3
Unit Four
- Knowledge and Verbal Reasoning
- Inference Training
- Strategies to Build and Support Verbal Reasoning
- Test #4
Unit Five
- Fiction Literacy
- Poetry Literacy
- Nonfiction Literacy
- Test #5
Unit Six
- Formative Assessment: A Check for Understanding
- Summative Assessments to Guide Reading Instruction
- Intervention in Instruction
- Assignment #4: Develop a sample lesson and respond to essential questions based on a classroom scenario
- Assignment #5: Course Reflection
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