Reading Endorsement
Program Quick Facts
Credits
15
Start Terms
Fall
|Spring
|Summer
Available
On Campus
|Online
Tuition
$8,956.50
estimated cost per semester
The Reading Endorsement prepares you with evidence-based knowledge and practical skills for teaching readers across the K-8 grade levels. Learn instructional practices of the five essential components of learning to read – phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, and how to assess student learning in language arts.
While learning how to teach young learners how to read, you will also be equipped to teach middle and high school students to read, write, think, and learn in ways that support them to excel in literary subject matters.
You will gain experience in designing and delivering lessons, using available tools like scripted lesson samples, digital content design tools, digital literacy tools, and artificial intelligence. In each grade level, you will also be equipped to support readers who struggle with foundational skills. Courses additionally address how to adapt content and your classroom for students of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Coursework for the endorsement is built into the elementary education, elementary special education, and special education programs at DSU. Depending on testing, you can be licensed to teach readers in grades K-8 or K-12.
Admission requirements
An endorsement is a specialized qualification that can be added to a teaching license, which can authorize you to teach in a particular subject, grade level, or educational setting.
To receive the Reading Endorsement, you must either:
- Be enrolled in one of DSU's education degree programs that lead to teaching licensure or
- Must already hold a valid primary teaching license.
Courses
Students develop an understanding of the tools of inquiry of K-8 language arts, integrating reading, writing, speaking and listening, the ability to design, deliver, and evaluate a variety of instructional strategies and processes that incorporate learning resources, materials, technologies, and state and national curriculum standards appropriate to K-8 language arts; the ability to assess student learning in K-8 language arts; and to apply these knowledge, skills, and attitudes to real life situations and experiences.
This course builds the teacher candidate’s knowledge of evidence-based instructional practices of the five essential components of reading acquisition (phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) specific to the K-3 level, with an emphasis on the foundational reading skills. Students will learn to design and deliver lessons aligned to standards, using available tools such as scripted lesson samples, digital content design tools, digital literacy tools, and/or artificial intelligence. Students will apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to real-life situations and experiences through a Level II field experience.
This course builds the teacher candidate’s knowledge of evidence-based instructional practices of the five essential components of reading acquisition (phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) specific to the 4-8 level, with an emphasis on developing fluent reading, vocabulary, and comprehension, while supporting intermediate readers who struggle with the foundational skills. Students will learn to design and deliver lessons aligned to standards, using available tools such as scripted lesson samples, digital content design tools, digital literacy tools, including artificial intelligence. Students will apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to real-life situations and experiences through a Level II field experience.
This is a practical course in which the student is directed toward acquiring specific skills that will enable a teacher to complete group and individual assessments and develop activities to remediate reading problems. This course includes a practicum.
This course explores methods for teaching middle and high school students to read, write, think, and learn in ways that allow them to master the subject matter and meaningfully apply their understanding. Participants learn to plan lessons that teach content and nurture greater literacy. Pre-, during-, and post-reading strategies and writing strategies are explored, along with assessment methods that give students a continual view of their literacy progress and achievement. Classroom adaptations for culturally and linguistically diverse populations in the content areas are also addressed.
