These courses are on-demand and self-paced. Participants will receive a certificate of completion once all assignments are successfully completed, and a quiz is passed with at least 80%.

This 5-hour course is designed to teach participants how to take and score running records for use as baseline, midline, and end-line assessments in grades K-5. By matching students’ instructional and independent reading abilities, participants will understand how to use running records to effectively match, select, and scaffold readers throughout appropriate text.

Course Outcomes:

  • Understand the value of benchmark assessments that incorporate qualitative judgments and quantitative analysis of student outcomes.
  • Learn and practice with taking and scoring running records.
  • Learn how to administer all facets of running records to assess all facets of oral reading, phonics, and fluency.
  • Practice with scoring, analysis, and interpretation of running record data.
  • Use data for planning and on-going instruction.
  • Understand the distinction within Independent, Instructional, and Hard levels of reading in order to properly align and scaffold learners' needs to matching readers to appropriate text.

This course is 20 hours

The building blocks to effective reading comprehension begin in the primary grades with explicit instruction, teacher modeling and lots of guided practice. Under this umbrella, participants will learn to teach reading comprehension effectively through strategy that builds student capacity. Story structure, graphic representation, reciprocal questioning, retelling and summarizing are some of the approaches under study. All strategies overviewed will include tools for implementation.

Course Outcomes:

  • Acquire and defend the skills needed to effectively teach reading comprehension in primary grades. 
  • Summarize in writing, and follow up with implementation of strategies that build student capacity through teacher modeling guided practice.
  • Produce and apply new strategies in classrooms, reflect on the experience and modify lessons.

This course is 20 hours

Building reading muscle requires training, perseverance, and constant progress monitoring. Participants will review intervention strategies that include timely response to intervention focused on strength and strategy. Strategic and differentiated interventions reviewed and practiced with will include cognitive questioning, vocabulary development, peer and teacher feedback, use of graphic organizers and reflective self-monitoring strategies as they apply to middle-level learners.

Course Outcomes:

  • Investigate and construct intervention strategies focused on response to intervention.
  • Apply strategies to differentiate instruction for struggling learners.
  • Identify, produce and implement vocabulary and questioning strategies combined with consistent use of teacher and peer feedback to build reading muscle.

This course is 20 hours