3 semester credits

The intermediate grades present unique challenges to literacy learning including complexity of text, students' use of technology, student motivation to learn, and explicit and implicit gender issues exhibited in the classroom. Education professionals are provided with opportunities to evaluate research-based instructional and assessment practices to help students in grades 4–6 to actively engage in literacy learning and achieve the literacy goals of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and other state standards. Education professionals examine the role of literacy in content area learning, explore ways to teach close reading of complex texts, and consider how to incorporate different levels, types, and genres of text to support all students' learning and literacy development. The focus of the coursework is on effective strategies to support writing about text, content-area specialization vocabulary, listening and speaking, and the effective use of technology tools to support content area reading.