RDNG/516
Science of Reading and Systematic Phonics Instruction

This course examines the science of reading and its application to evidence-based literacy instruction. Learners explore research on how children learn to read and the cognitive, linguistic, and instructional foundations of skilled reading. Emphasis is placed on foundational reading skills, including phonological and phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, decoding, encoding, and word recognition. Learners apply principles of explicit and systematic instruction to the design and delivery of phonics instruction, including instructional routines for teaching sound-symbol correspondences, blending, segmenting, word analysis, and increasingly complex orthographic patterns. The course also examines the relationship among word recognition, language comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension within models of skilled reading.