EDRD 688: Foundations of Literacy Instruction
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of Graduate Coordinator
Credit Hours: (3)
This course is designed to provide students with foundational knowledge of the developmental
stages of literacy development, as well as important seminal research within each
stage. Students will also gain knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research-based
instructional strategies for each stage of reading development.
Detailed Description of Content of Course
This course explores the characteristics and a wide-range of research-based instructional
practices, approaches and methods, including technology-based practices, for learners
at differing stages of literacy development.
Major topics addressed within the course include:
- Characteristics of the emergent stage of literacy development
- Characteristics of the beginning stage of literacy development
- Characteristics of the transitional stage of literacy development
- Characteristics of the advanced stage of literacy development
- Concept of word and concepts of print
- Phonemic and phonological awareness
- Basic principles of word study instruction for each stage of spelling development:
onsets and rimes, consonant blends/digraphs, short and long vowel patterns, diphthongs,
syllables, inflections, affixes, morphemes.
- Fluency instruction across the stages of literacy development
- Comprehension strategies across literacy development
- Role of oral & silent reading
- Role of motivation and engagement in literacy development
- Social, physical, and psychological facets of literacy development
- Word attack skills
- The connection between reading and writing
- Selecting appropriate texts for each stage of reading development
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
This course will involve a lecture format with class discussion, audio/visual presentations,
guest speakers, role-playing, hands-on activities and action assignments. Students
will develop and implement reading lessons with students in various stages of reading
development and engage in professional readings addressing pertinent issues in the
field of reading.
Goals and Objectives of the Course
The goals, objectives, and assignments for the course address the Virginia Department
of Education Standards for Reading Specialists and the International Literacy Association
Standards for Reading/Literacy Specialists.
Having successfully completed this course, the student will:
- Demonstrate expertise in developing students’ phonological and phonemic awareness
skills (including sound symbol relationships, syllable awareness, onset-rime awareness,
and phoneme manipulation).
- Demonstrate expertise in explicit phonics instruction, including an understanding
of orthographic and morphemic spelling patterns, decoding skills, and word attack
skills.
- Understand how Language Experience Approach and choral and oral reading instructional
activities can develop students’ developing oral expression.
- Demonstrate advanced knowledge of morphology of English including inflections, prefixes,
suffixes, roots, and word relationships.
- Demonstrate advanced knowledge of a repertoire of evidence-based comprehension strategies,
including questioning strategies, predicting, inferring, summarizing, and making connections.
- Demonstrate knowledge of evidence-based instructional strategies for improving students’
implicit and explicit vocabulary learning.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the individual systems of the English language, including
phonology, orthography, semantics, syntax, and pragmatic, and how they interact and
influence students' literacy development.
- Demonstrate the ability to foster appreciation of a variety of literature, including
using diverse fiction and nonfiction texts to inform students' world views, personal
identities, and meaning-making capacities.
- Understand the importance reading strategically through a variety of means including
by selecting literary and informational texts of appropriate yet engaging topics
- Demonstrate knowledge of systematic spelling instruction, including orthographic patterns;
and, strategies for promoting generalization of spelling study to writing, and the
awareness of the purpose and limitations of “invented spelling”.
- Explain the needs and characteristics of talented or high-achieving readers and be
knowledgeable of instructional strategies to challenge them at developmentally appropriate
levels.
- Select, adapt, and either teach or evaluate evidence-based instruction and/or intervention
approaches and programs to meet the literacy needs of a student or small group of
students who struggle with reading.
- Demonstrate knowledge of structured literacy instructional approaches that includes
explicit, systematic, sequential, and cumulative instruction that is grounded in science-based
reading research and aligned with evidence-based literacy instruction.
Assessment Measures
Assessment measures may include, but are not limited to:
- Research article annotation
- Written reflections on professional readings (including reflections on personal instructional
practices and routines)
- Final exam
Other Course Information
None
Review and Approval
May 1995 Reviewed Dr. Robert Lockwood
October 2008 Course title change, course revision Don Langrehr/Jennifer Jones
April 27, 2026