Course Details

Reading is THE essential academic skill. Yet, in every literate culture, it is a difficult skill to acquire. Research in Cognitive Neuroscience addresses this problem: the brain is well prepared for understanding speech but is poorly prepared for understanding writing. This course integrates research on the teaching of reading from brain science, psychology, education, linguistics, and other fields. It suggests best practices from very early childhood through preschool, kindergarten, and all grades through high school. It is this background information on early childhood reading development that helps shape understanding and teaching methods across all grade levels. Specific instructional methods are described while keeping focus on comprehension, motivation, decoding, and individualization. Reading problems, ranging from social and cultural through biological, are explored, followed by steps to overcoming them. The point of this course is that there is no obvious transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" as both processes continue indefinitely.

This course is applicable towards the following certificate:
*Health and Human Development