EDUC 680 How Children in Developing Countries Learn to Read

This foundational course will introduce you to the basic principles of how children learn to read in early grades in low-resource classrooms in developing countries. No prerequisites.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Articulate why reading is important for human development;
• Explain the research and theory behind learning in general;
• Explain how children learn the skill of reading, and the role of teachers and direct instruction in reading acquisition;
• Outline the five components of reading (phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension) and techniques for teaching print skills and meaning skills;
• Describe critical factors for reading acquisition in a multilingual context, including the difference in strategies needed for learning to read in one’s mother tongue (L1) vs. learning to read in a second language (L2);
• Describe how curriculum and materials can support early grade reading;
• Describe how you would plan and implement action research for promoting reading;
• Create and present an analysis for applying knowledge about how children learn to read to your own context and work.