Foundations of Reading: Meaning Skills Sample Syllabus

Foundations of Reading: Meaning Skills

Course Description and Overview:

Foundations of Reading: Meaning Skills is a six-week, asynchronous online course. This course is designed to help adult educators, teaching at any level, improve their understanding of vocabulary, comprehension, and the role these skills play in overall reading comprehension. The course is taught through Canvas. Completion of the course is designed to require 24 hours of your time – approximately four hours per week. However, you may find that you want to spend longer on some topics. In order to receive a certificate for participating in Foundations of Reading: Meaning Skills, you must complete all assignments, respond to each discussion question, and respond at least once to one of your classmates in any of the week’s discussion/assignment forums. The course week runs Thursday through Wednesday, and all assignments are due by midnight on Wednesday.

There is no required textbook for this course; however, each week will have a resource section with articles, links, and other materials you may find useful for this class and your future teaching. It is a good idea to bookmark or save these resources as you go along so you can access them after the course has been closed.

Weekly Format:

Lessons are sequential, and each week will follow a similar format. Included in each week is:

A video with most of the lesson content. There will also be a transcript available if you prefer a printed copy of the lesson. However, charts, diagrams, and images will not be in the transcript, so it is a good idea to watch the video and follow along with transcript.
Additional content following the video, usually with links for you to explore in order to complete activities.
A resource section containing links mentioned in the lesson as well as a section containing additional web links and articles.
A section for assignments and Discussion Board topics.

Course Requirements

Because the course is designed for busy professionals, it is scheduled over several weeks to allow time to work through the materials and complete the weekly work according to your schedule. It is important to you and to the learning community that you have reviewed your personal and work schedule and have made the time available to commit to your learning and professional growth. It is expected that the course will require about 4 hours per week.

You must have consistent and reliable Internet access to participate in this course.

In order to receive a certificate of completion, you must complete and submit all assignments, including the Discussion Board questions and responses to at least one classmates in each week.

Remember that, although you will gain from doing the activities, you will learn most from discussions with your online colleagues and facilitator(s). To keep our discussions as productive as possible, please stay within the timeframe outlined for this course. You may refer to the course timeline for specific dates.

Many of you have already taken an online course offered by the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center. However, even if you are a seasoned veteran of online learning, it may help you to refer back to “Tips for Success“, document. This provides tips and expectations for being a good online learner, how to participate in the online discussions, an overview of online learning “netiquette,” how to navigate the course, and other great tips for learning online.

Learning Outcomes:


What you will be learning.	How you will express and demonstrate that learning.
How the different reading components, other than comprehension, affect a reading profile	Ongoing discussion and reflection through Discussion Board topics
What vocabulary skills are and how they play a role in overall reading comprehension	Creation of a vocabulary activity
What comprehension skills are and how to target different areas of comprehension	Creation of a comprehension activity
How to create activities and lesson plans for learners at any level that include meaning skills components	Conducting assessments in the areas of vocabulary and comprehension Creation of a lesson plan targeted for specific skill gaps that includes both vocabulary and comprehension practice

Course Schedule:

Each lesson addresses a different aspect of reading. Course activities include readings, assignments, and discussions. The lessons are developmental and sequential. The schedule below lists the dates that assignments are due. Posts to discussions may be made at any time within the week in which the topic is being presented. Please be sure to adhere to the schedule. Lessons are self-paced within the week. Return as often as you wish to the activities and discussions.

*Please note that in week 4 you will be assessing a learner. Please be mindful of this requirement and begin to think about a learner you can work with. It would be a good idea to begin to build a relationship with a learner, if you do not already have a working relationship with one. If you are in a situation that limits your ability to work with learners, please let your facilitator(s) know as soon as possible.


Week #	Lessons	Assignments	Due Dates
Week 1:	Introduction to Foundations of Reading: Meaning Skills	Introduce yourself in Building Our Online Community. Fill in the K and W columns of your KWL chart. Share your KWL chart with your technical facilitator. Select an article to read. Post to the Read and Reflect thread. Post a participation response.	All assignments due end of Week 1
Week 2:	Vocabulary	Submit a resource to the Foundations of Reading: Meaning Skills Resources spreadsheet. Design a vocabulary activity and post it on the Discussion Board. Post a participation response. Update your KWL.	All assignments due end of Week 2
Week 3:	Comprehension	Create a comprehension activity and post it on the Discussion Board. Post a participation response. Update your KWL. Complete 10 Important Words activity Add an additional resource to the spreadsheet.	All assignments due end of Week 3
Weeks 4 & 5:	Assessments	Reflect on 10 Important Words graph. (week 4) Conduct assessments with a learner and post analysis on Discussion Board. (week 5) Post a participation response. (Week 5) Update your KWL. (Week 5) Add an additional resource to the spreadsheet. (Week 5)	All assignments due end of Week 5
Week 6:	Lesson Planning, Evaluation, and Farewell	Create a lesson plan based on the needs of the learner you assessed in Week 4. Post a participation response. Add an additional resource to the spreadsheet. In the Discussion Board, post a reflection about your time in the course.	All assignments due end of Week 1

Participant Expectations:

In order to receive a certificate of completion, you must submit all assignments on time. Remember that although you will benefit from doing the activities, you will learn most from discussions with your online colleagues and facilitator(s). To keep discussions as productive as possible, please post and respond within the assigned week. You may refer to the Course Syllabus for specific dates. In order to stay on track, be sure to check your weekly progress in Grades.

Discussion Board Posts:

You will either be writing a thoughtful response to a Discussion Board prompt, or posting an activity directly to the Discussion Board. For prompts, write a one- to two-paragraph response for each Discussion Board question. For activities, make sure to follow the directions and include all necessary components.

In order to receive full credit for your peer response post, your writing should include some details or depth. (Cursory responses such as “I agree with your answer.” or “That is a good point.” will not receive full credit.)

Please do not create your own thread when responding to Discussion Board questions. All that is needed is to click the reply button.

Participants who do not post to the Discussion Board within the first week will be removed from the course. This will then place you on “waiting list only” status for future online courses and trainings.

If you do not post for more than one week at any time during the course or if you fall more than one week behind in your assignments, you may be removed from the course and will be placed on “waiting list only” status for future online courses. If you find that you cannot post for more than two weeks, please contact your technical facilitator at valrccourses@vcu.edu or 1-800-237-0178 as soon as possible to discuss the situation and your further participation in the course.