Course Details

EDL 722 Overview

Students answer the following questions: What are different instructional models of literacy? How have these been conceptualized and tested? How have they been applied to literacy practice? Students are oriented to instructional models of literacy as applied in schools and classrooms and examine how such models define literacy and instruction. Following Garcia and Pearson's (1991) heuristic, students will examine four general instructional approaches: direct instruction, explicit explanation, cognitive apprenticeship, and whole language. They subsequently use the four approaches as scaffolds for investigating the following topics: oral and written language development; phonological processes; lexical and semantic comprehension processes; and socio-cultural influences on literacy.