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Download Edu T&L 668 Syllabus [DOC]

Education T & L 668: Reading Foundations - Winter 2007

Instructor: Kevin D. Cordi
Email: cordi.3@osu.edu
Phone: 272-6153
Office: Ramseyer
Office Hours: by appointment

Service-Learning Coordinator: Mrs. Debbie Morbitt
Email: morbitt.2@osu.edu
Phone: 771-9019

Course Description:

This course introduces you to the theories and practices of teaching and learning of reading for children aged 3 -14 years. It is a foundation course in reading that, in combination with EDU T & L 669 Understanding Phonics, is intended to align with the requirements of Ohio licensure standards affecting students seeking to become teachers in Early and Middle Childhood Education. This course presents a cognitive-construcivist view of the reading process and a social-constructivist view of teaching and learning. Accordingly, the child is regarded as an active agent in his/her own learning, and teaching and learning are regarded as socially situated activities that occur in a community of practice or culture. Major themes of the course are a child-centered philosophy of the teaching of reading and the importance of ‘diversity awareness’—the need for teachers to be aware of the diversity of backgrounds and abilities that children bring to the classroom and of strategies for dealing with that diversity.

This course is taught using a service-learning approach. You are required to perform 3 to 4 hours per week of literacy-related community service in schools. Your service in schools is a core learning experience in the course and is designed to help you make connections between theory and practice and to give you practical experience with children as readers and writers.

Objectives

As a result of taking this course, students should be able to:

1. Display an in-depth knowledge of the reading process.
2. Articulate knowledge of a social-constructivist view of teaching and learning and be able to identify in school settings, teaching-learning situations in reading that exemplify social-constructivist principles.
3. Display knowledge of a range of instructional and assessment approaches for fostering and promoting children’s reading ability and be able to identify these approaches in school settings.
4. Make informed judgments about the use and the effectiveness of technology to assist children’s reading development.
5. Demonstrate an awareness of the needs of children for whom reading presents most challenges.

Rationale:

The course is premised on a child-centered philosophy of teaching and it is structured around a cycle of assessing, teaching, and learning depicted below:

As depicted, a child-centered approach to the teaching of literacy hinges on the teacher’s knowledge of the reader, acquired through initial assessment of children’s literacy development. Based on this knowledge, as well as knowledge of resources, the teacher sets up structures and activities in the classroom or ‘frameworks’ to support or scaffold children’s learning. These structures and activities provide contexts in which the teaching of reading in the different phases of reading development occurs. The teacher’s monitoring of children’s progress in reading, through various forms of assessment, provides information that contributes further to the teacher’s knowledge of the reader. Based on this updated knowledge, the teacher may re-orchestrate classroom frameworks and the cycle continues.

Prescribed Texts

• Graves, M. F., Juel, C., & Graves, B. B. (2004). Teaching reading in the 21st century (3rd edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Clay, M. M. (2002). An observation survey of early literacy achievement (2nd edition). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. (You will need this for 669 class.)

Supplementary Readings (will be announced)

Tompkins, Gail (2004) Fifty Literacy Strategies: Step by Step, New Jersey, Pearson.

Statement of Student Rights

Any student with a documented disability who may require special assistance should self-identify to the instructor as early as possible in the quarter in order to receive effective and timely accommodations.
Academic Misconduct: OSU defined is as “any activity that tends to compromise the academic integrity of the University, or subvert the educational process.” This includes plagiarism, collusion, copying the work of another student… If I suspect that a student has committed academic misconduct, I am obligated to report it. Sanctions could include failing a grade, suspension, or dismissal.
ODSD Statement: Any student who feels he or she may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the instructor privately to discuss needs. To coordinate needs, contact ODS at 614-292-3307.

Grievances and Solving Problems: According to University policy, if you have a problem with the class, “you should seek to resolve a grievance concerning a grade or academic practice by speaking first with the instructor. If this does not work contact the supervising instructor.

Statement on Diversity:

The college affirms the importance and value of diversity in the student body. Discrimination against any individual based upon protected status, which is defined by age, color, disability, gender identity or expression, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status, is prohibited.

Requirements

Your service-learning experience in reading provides the basis for completing most requirements. In particular, your Service Journal encourages you to reflect on your experience and to make connections between theory and practice. Reflecting on your experiences is an essential component of the service-learning process. Your learning evolves, in part, through these structured activities designed to help you think about what you are observing and doing.

1. Reading History (5 points) Before you can learn about how other children read, you must first consider your reading history. Trace your reading history and development as a reader since your early childhood. You can choose to present this in a creative way. (Poem, newspaper, journal, cartoon…)We will share them during the second class.
   Consider the following questions as you share your reading history story.
   1. What is reading?
   2. Do you remember being read to as a child? By whom. Describe.
   3. How do you learn about stories?
   4. How did you learn to read?
   5. Did any of your teachers read to you?
   6. How would you characterize your reading habits and attitudes in the last few years?
   7. Do you read for recreation/academic reasons? How does it make you feel?
   8. Who helped you connect to reading?
   9. Do you consider yourself a “reader?” Why or why not?
2. Service learning in reading (25 points)
   You are asked to perform 3 to 4 hours per week of community service in schools, for a total of 25 hours. Arrangements have been made for you to work in school sites. If you are already engaged in a community-based volunteer effort in reading or if you work with children in reading on a regular basis, you should be able to use that experience to fulfill this course requirement; please see the instructor or service-learning coordinator to discuss this. We want you to have the opportunity to work with children in one-to-one, small-group, and whole-class settings and engage children in a range of activities that foster literacy development. These activities might include: reading stories aloud to children, supporting children’s comprehension through guided questioning and story retelling, listening to children read and prompting use of reading strategies, creating opportunities to write, and motivating children to read. The exact nature of your involvement will depend on the site and the expectations of your participating teacher.
3. Observing and recording a child’s oral reading (15 points)
   You are asked to take a running record of a child’s reading at your school and to assess his/her comprehension and to present a record of the child’s performance. You are to write a report describing your interpretation of the record in light of your emerging understanding of the reading process based on class material and readings (no more than 4 double-spaced pages, 12-point font). (We will discuss this in more detail in class.)
4. Service journal (25 points)
   You are asked to reflect on your experience at your school site and to keep a journal recording your experiences. In your journal, please log the date and times of your school visits each week and reflect on your experiences over the week (approximately 2 double-spaced typed pages per week). It is important that you write this as soon as possible after your school visit (e.g., the same night). The purpose of the journal is to prompt you to make connections between theory (from your OSU classes) and practice (from your community service) and to promote critical reflection. We are interested in the challenges you encounter and the insights you gain into a social-constructivist view of teaching and learning, instructional approaches and assessment for fostering and promoting children’s reading development, the needs of children for whom reading presents most challenges, and the use of technology (e.g., talking books, Web sites, other instructional software) to support children’s reading development. Collect your journal entries in a 3-prong manila folder, ordered from first to last, and hand in the entire collection on each due date.
5. Digital Story Presentation or Literacy Strategies or Theories of Reading (30 points)
   Students with or without a partner will share in digital story form (to be explained later in class) a three to five minute digital presentation of
   1. A Literacy Strategy
   2. Theory of Reading
   You will have days of open lab and structured time with the instructor where he will model and demonstrate how to create digital story presentation for reading.

Grading

At the end of the course, participants will receive a letter grade (A, A-, B+, etc.). Grades will be assigned based on the instructor’s judgment as to whether the student has satisfied the stated objectives of the course in the following manner:

A = 100-95	A-= 94-90	B+= 89-87	B = 86-83	B-= 82-80	C+= 79-77
C = 76-73	C-= 72-70	D+= 69-67	D = 66-60	E = below 60

It should be noted that grades of A and A- are only used where the work is of an excellent standard. The Ohio State University Bulletin states guidelines for marking (grading) that indicate the above quality determinations are based on a comparison with other students in the course, and/or with students who have taken the course previously, and/or the instructor’s personal expectations relative to the stated objectives of the course, based on the instructor’s experience and expertise.