Foundations of Language and Literacy

Catalog description

The foundations of language and literacy are essential for learners to flourish. Learning to read is a fundamental skill that impacts a learner’s present and future educational access, self-determination, and societal inclusion. Strong literacy instruction is a tool to dismantle instances of institutional and systemic oppression deliberately embedded in society and advance racial and socioeconomic equality through literacy. Reading is a complex cognitive process. Reading requires both the ability to decode the words on the page and the ability to make sense of those words. Word recognition must take place automatically and language comprehension skills must be applied strategically to enable skilled reading. This course is focused on developing an understanding of the components of effective literacy instruction as well as the classroom practices that support them.