Mild to Moderate Intervention Specialist

This course focuseson research and productive strategies for establishing successfulcollaborative relationships with families, educators and other professionals. It fosters sensitivity to the needsof culturally and linguistically diverse families and cultures. Significance is placed on partnerships and networking with other professionals, paraprofessionals and families as team members designing, implementing and evaluating appropriate educational experiences. Co-teaching as a means of effectively partnering with general educators is highlighted as well as the importance of staying current with the best practices in the field via professional development and research.

This course is designedto teach the fundamental principles and concepts of the structure of language, with a focus on phonological awareness and phonics. Students learn the soundsymbol correspondencesof language and understand the relationship of phonemic awareness and the phonological system of language to the reading process. Students also study the linguistic and cognitive bases of reading.

This course teaches the professional to understand and use general and specialized content knowledge for teaching across curricular content areas to individualize learning for individuals with exceptionalities. Additionally, the course addresses how to modify general and specialized curricula to make them accessible to individuals with exceptionalities. Particular emphasis is placed on the concepts of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), differentiation of curriculum and creation of engaging student led learning opportunities.

The Foundations of Literacy course provides a scientifically based foundation in the cognitive socio-cultural, linguistic, and motivational influenceson literacy and language development. The course presents the key scientifically based reading research foundations needed to understand how reading develops and effective methods and strategies used to teach literacy skills to young children through young adults. Topics include understanding reading research, cognitive psychology’s contributions to understanding the reading process, language development, the sequence of learning to read, the essential components of reading instruction, and an introduction to the most effective approaches to teaching reading across the grade bands.

Vocabulary, Comprehension and Writing Instruction is a comprehensive exploration of the developmental and instructional implications related to fluent reading, vocabulary acquisition, comprehension and writing instruction. Along with these core aspects of reading, major skill domains that contribute to the development of written expression are explored. Principles of explicit and systematic instruction of these core aspects of reading and writing are studied and practiced.

This course will address the use of formal and informal assessment proceduresused to design and evaluate reading instruction and intervention for children in preschool through high school. Participants will gain the knowledge and skills needed to choose and give appropriate reading assessments for a variety of purposes, use data-based decision making to guide instructional planning and intervention design, and understand struggling readers, including those with reading disabilities. Participants will apply both formal and informal assessments to a problem-solving model aimed and design robust reading instruction. An Emphasis will be placed on creating Multi-TieredSystemof Supports (MTSS)to support all students.