The focus of this course is on the acquisition of reading, writing and spelling skills using a multisensory structured literacy approach. Participants will develop and understanding of how the brain learns to read and how to approach instruction as a diagnostician. Class participants will explore all parts of the acquisition of literacy, including oral language development, phonology (phonological & phonemic awareness, phonics), decoding/word recognition, spelling, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. While theory and research will be shared, the primary focus of this course is the direct application of teaching from a structured literacy perspective. [ 3 credits ]