About the course
Reading Comprehension Instruction focuses on the research and exemplary practices that help students acquire strong reading comprehension skills. RCI is appropriate for all K-12 teachers and support staff who need to help increase their students’ comprehension of text—whether that text is a literature selection or informational text. The course provides participants with a synthesis of the research base on reading comprehension instruction and vocabulary development. Participants examine, discuss and evaluate the appropriate application of a range of instructional strategies from explicit to implicit teaching of comprehension skills. Strategies are presented for increasing student comprehension of both narrative and expository texts. In addition, participants learn how to help students self-monitor comprehension and apply appropriate “fix-up” strategies when comprehension is not achieved. Practice in using instructional strategies and examples of student work are embedded in the course.
Course Objectives:
• Develop an understanding of research and exemplary practices that help students acquire strong comprehension and vocabulary skills.
• Examine the requirements of literacy content standards: regular practice with complex texts; using evidence from text when reading, writing and speaking; attending to academic vocabulary; and building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction. Understand the nature of narrative text and expository text and how they can both aid and hinder comprehension.
• Learn how to build and support dialogic discourse in classrooms through student-centered strategies to support comprehension.
• Recognize and reflect on the relationship between comprehension and vocabulary knowledge.