Responsive Literacy Education
Office: 1380 Lawrence Street Center, 701
Telephone: 303-315-6300
E-mail: academicservices@ucdenver.edu
Overview
The Responsive Literacy Education program provides educators with advanced knowledge and training to work with diverse student populations as they develop reading, writing and oral language skills. Course work includes language and literacy acquisition, culturally relevant teaching practices aligned to the sciences of reading and writing, literature, literacy assessment to inform instruction, hands-on practica, and other areas.
The MA degree options in Literacy Education will enhance your literacy instruction skills and credentials while providing advanced knowledge and training to work with diverse student populations as they develop reading, writing, and oral language skills. The program requires access to students in order to complete the methods courses. We stress the importance of recognizing a variety of literacies - home, school, community, and mainstream - in both first and second languages, and the meaningful use of literacy and language to improve students’ quality of life.
By placing emphasis on the reading, writing, oral and visual language development of culturally, linguistically and academically diverse student populations, this master’s program is at the forefront of the field. Importance is placed on using theory, inquiry and personal reflection to inform classroom practice. The program prepares teachers to become decision makers capable of developing scientifically-based and learner-centered curricula where each student’s reading and writing abilities are assessed to address developmental or special needs.
Faculty
Lori Elliott | Clinical Associate Professor
Erica Holyoke | Assistant Professor
Lucinda Soltero-Gonzalez | Associate Professor
Maria Uribe | Senior Instructor
Sarah Woodard | Senior Instructor
Literacy, Language, & Culturally Responsive Teaching (LCRT)
This course develops an appreciation, understanding, and application of literacy assessment and instruction in PK-6 classrooms. Interns learn how to use various types of assessment and instruction for reading and writing that address the literacy needs of PK-6 Students. Cross-listed with LCRT 4000. Restriction: Restricted to students in the Teacher MA, ECE Licensure or undergraduates in the BAMA. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Restrictions: TCHR-MA, BMA, ECSE-LICG, ECSO-LICG, SPCE-ENDG and SPCO-ENDG.
This course develops an appreciation, understanding, and application of literacy assessment and instruction in PK-6th classrooms. Interns learn how to use various types of assessment and instruction for reading and writing that address the literacy needs of PK-6th Students. Cross-listed with LCRT 4001. Prereq: LCRT 4000 or LCRT 5000. Restriction: Restricted to students in the Teacher MA or undergraduates in the BAMA. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Prereq: LCRT 5000 or LCRT 4000. Restriction: TCHR-MA plan or BMA subplan.
This course involves critical examination of reading process and instruction. Teachers develop an understanding of the principles of sociopsycholinguistic theory in learning and teaching. Organization options for reading instruction for native and non-native speakers of English at all ages and ability levels will be examined. Teachers become familiar with materials and methods used for reading and reading instruction in schools, including multicultural materials, students' interaction with and response to materials; and techniques to assess and evaluate students reading. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on supporting adolescents’ developing literacy understandings especially related to vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing, and student engagement across all content areas in the upper elementary grades through high school. Importance is placed on putting new teaching practices in place. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on adolescents’ developing literacy understandings across all content areas upper elementary grades through high school. Attention is given to comprehension and critical thinking including assessment, unit planning, problem-based learning, research cycles, technology, and putting new teaching practices into place. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on reading, writing, and language assessments and their use to plan and deliver informed classroom and intervention instruction. Principles of literacy assessment, state and federal law, instructional strategies and interventions are learned through creation of student literacy profiles. Needs of both L1 and L2 learners as well as other diverse learners are considered. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Provides knowledge and practice in using specific literacy methods to enhance students' content learning and literacy development in middle schools and high schools. Various methods of literacy assessment to guide instruction for students are emphasized. Instructional strategies for special populations, especially speakers of English as a second language, are also addressed. Cross-listed with LCRT 4100. Restriction: Restricted to students in the Teacher MA or undergraduates in the BAMA. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Restriction: TCHR-MA plan or BMA subplan.
Provides an examination of broad cultural diversity regarding the role of culture in teaching and learning in the classroom. After examining their educational contexts, students gain skills to differentiate instruction for diverse learners; foster quality instruction that demonstrates respect for cultural pluralism; and, create equitable educational environments. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on teaching and learning theories and practical classroom strategies for teaching English Language Arts to students in middle school and high school. Cross-listed with LCRT 4200. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Reading and evaluating fiction and non-fiction appropriate for students in middle and senior high school. Emphasis is on modern literature. Cross-listed with LCRT 4201. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on children's developing literacy understandings and proficiencies beginning in the preschool years. Attention is given to language development, assessment, and instruction in pre-kindergarten through third grade, partnerships with community literacy institutions provide information on their use for literacy development. Cross-listed with LCRT 4210. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This course will focus on the routines and practices which allow for student specific instruction and assessment in the Early Literacy classroom. Participants will examine and critique current literacy routines and assessments needed to best meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse children. Cross-listed with LCRT 4220. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Participants will examine Pre K-3rd grade literacy instruction to understand how to meet the needs of young students. The course will analyze instructional practices for young gifted, special needs and English language learning students to best meet the needs of all learners. Cross-listed with LCRT 4230. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
The course will explore the format and components of Guided Reading Plus, including: responsive teaching, summative and formative assessment, content/language objectives, oral language development, strategies for problem solving, comprehension, fluency, word solving strategies, and the reciprocity of reading and writing. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
The course will explore specific teaching moves that help children build an effective literacy processing system and become independent readers. We will study areas of reading difficulty and ways of assessing students to determine their strengths and instructional needs. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This will explore the power of formative assessment for observation and interpretation of reading behaviors. We will study the continuum of literacy learning as a foundation for learning the behaviors and understandings that must be taught at each text level. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This course provides teachers with a basic understanding of reading and writing development in preschool and early primary grades, while considering specific strategies for using and teaching reading and writing in early primary grades (pre-K-3). This course is cross-listed with LCRT 4710. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This course combines examination of current research into effective practices of teaching writing with students’ own writing projects. The curriculum serves teachers in all subjects and grades K-12. Readings, groupings, and discussions are differentiated according to specific grade(s) taught. Restriction: Restricted to graduate students in the SEHD or Teacher Education minors. Cross-listed with LCRT 4720. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Restriction: Restricted to graduate students in the SEHD or Teacher Education minors.
Teachers will experience participating in writers' workshop, writing several pieces, taking them through revision and workshop groups. Teachers will also read, discuss, and respond to texts about teaching writing and preparing students to take state writing tests. Max hours: 4 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Repeatable. Max Credits: 4.
Teachers will experience participating in writers' workshop, writing several pieces, taking them through revision and workshop groups. Teachers will also read, discuss, and respond to texts about teaching writing and preparing students to take state writing tests. Max hours: 4 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Repeatable. Max Credits: 4.
Teachers will experience participating in writers' workshop, writing several pieces, taking them through revision and workshop groups. Teachers will also read, discuss, and respond to texts about teaching writing and preparing students to take state writing tests. Max hours: 4 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Repeatable. Max Credits: 4.
Explores the value and use of reading and writing as tools for learning across the curriculum on a K-12 basis. Specific needs and strategies for assisting at-risk and second language learners are also discussed. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Taught in Spanish, this course presents children's literature from Spanish speaking countries and Spanish speaking authors, along with teaching methodologies and avenues of further research in the field. Prereq: senior-level proficiency in Spanish. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on exploring, applying, and evaluating research-based instructional models and learning strategies for teaching literacy to diverse learners. Students develop a professional practice of providing instruction to support oral language, academic reading, and academic writing for native speakers of English, multilingual and bidialectal learners of English. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This course looks at the issue of multicultural literacy for K-8th grade and how children's and young adult literature can be used to create a high quality multicultural curriculum which enhances literacy development and covers all the content areas. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Children’s literature course exploring the historical development of children’s literature and its influence on contemporary literature and media. Emphasized are various genre including both fiction and nonfiction, choosing and critiquing children’s literature, and children’s book awards. Graphic novels and e-books are explored as the leading edge of this area. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This course explores children’s literature, including electronic books, within the past decade. A wide range of genres will be explored with a particular emphasis on newer authors and illustrators in the field. Participants will also practice critiquing children’s literature and selecting books for instruction. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on oral/written language and literacy in educational and home settings. Addresses learners with native English, English as additional language, bi-dialectal, and multilingual. Students analyze language and literacy samples using language structures and discourse patterns to develop instructional techniques. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Focuses on involving and connecting with families and communities of classroom learners. Students gain practical strategies to identify resources and funds of knowledge that diverse learners and families bring to schools; and, use learners’ cultural resources and references to promote all aspects of learning in the classroom. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This assessment course will provide background in literacy acquisition and prepare participants' to administer early literacy assessment tasks which will be used to inform teaching decisions and progress monitor student growth through the Early Literacy Intervention program. Max hours: 2 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Typically Offered: Fall.
Specific topics vary but will include the exploration of literacy development and instruction in particular populations or with specific focuses. Repeatable. Max hours: 9 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Repeatable. Max Credits: 9.
Repeatable. Max Hours: 9 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Repeatable. Max Credits: 9.
This is the first of 2 courses of a comprehensive field experience that extends participants' understanding of literacy acquisition by integrating theory and practice and prepares them to implement the Early Literacy Intervention program within a school or district. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Typically Offered: Fall.
Repeatable. Max Hours: 9 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Repeatable. Max Credits: 9.
Provides opportunities for advanced students in the M.A. program to apply concepts acquired in course work and other educational experiences to specific situations. Students will work in schools, classrooms, administrative offices, or community centers (according to their experiences, interests and current teaching positions; sites to be identified before course begins) to study the potential for change in schools and society and to reflect upon their roles as change agents in the field. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Provides opportunities for advanced students in the M.A. program to apply concepts acquired in course work and other educational experiences to specific situations. Students will work in schools, classrooms, administrative offices, or community centers (according to their experience, interests and current teaching positions; sites to be identified before course begins) to study the potential for change in schools and society and reflect upon their own roles as change agents in the field. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
A practicum which refines the participants' understanding of literacy acquisition and finalizes preparation to implement the Reading Recovery Program within their school/district. Max hours: 4 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
This final practicum is designed for teachers to enhance their education as reading professionals in two ways. First, by continuing to reflect on and analyze their own and others' teaching, participants will deepen their understanding of how to assess and design instruction based on the needs of students. Second, through structured coaching activities, participants will improve their skills in providing literacy leadership. Max hours: 3 Credits. Max hours: 3 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade
Max hours: 4 Credits.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade with IP
Additional Information: Report as Full Time.