Learn proven comprehension assessment techniques that will enable you to plan appropriate instruction for your 4th- to 6th-graders. Develop narrative and expository text lesson plans that use a collaborative teaching approach for direct comprehension instruction.

Engage your beginning and transitional readers and writers with research-based phonics and spelling activities. Study and discuss topics such as the principles which form the foundation for NCLB and traditional versus contemporary perspectives on spelling instruction. Investigate better ways to help students develop oral reading fluency through learning letters, letter-sound correspondence, letter-sound patterns, and high frequency words, then assess a student's skill level in spelling to set appropriate individual goals. At the conclusion of the course, create a case study of a second grade speller.

Enhance students' reading comprehension through context-based instruction, direct instruction, and incidental exposure. Learn to incorporate proven vocabulary instructional strategies into your teaching. Then evaluate how your own instructional practices map to the National Council of Teachers of English/International Reading Association (NCTE/IRA)standards and your state's standards.

Learn how to utilize the more than 19 million resources and materials of the Library of Congress to create student engagement, build critical thinking skills, and enhance knowledge construction with primary sources. Gain a new understanding of how close contact with the library’s historical resources can provide young people with a strong sense of the past and a new understanding of the present.

Discover Internet resources that promote inquiry oriented student learning and smart use of the Web for research and class assignments. In this course, you will explore WebQuests and learn to integrate the Internet into your curriculum effectively. You will design a WebQuest to enhance a classroom unit or curriculum area to engage students in meaningful research.