Events

Reading, Part 1

The Additional Qualification Course: Reading Part 1 enables you to develop a comprehensive literacy program to ensure students achieve full potential as fluent readers who comprehend what they read and can apply and communicate their knowledge and skills in new and varied contexts. You will develop a repertoire of practical strategies to meet the reading-comprehension and application needs of students in primary, junior, intermediate and secondary classrooms. Reading Part 1 focuses on ways of supporting your students through questioning, critical appreciation of perspective, and the detection of bias in text.

Through reading instruction, you will work with the most powerful tool learners have for developing ideas and insights, for giving shape to their experiences, and for making sense of their world and their possibilities in it: Language. To support effective language use and development within and beyond the course, you will also explore assessment tools for determining reading levels, strategies for reading improvement, structures for effective classroom implementation, and resources appropriate for addressing the strengths and needs of all readers.

Prerequisites

• An undergraduate degree acceptable to the Ontario College of Teachers
• Be a member in good standing with the OCT

Documents Required

• NONE

Reading, Part 2

The Additional Qualification Course: Reading Part 2 deepens your understanding of the role of the literacy teacher with regard to both program and instructional practices and, as well, to the opportunities and challenges faced by reading teachers. Building upon the knowledge and skills addressed in Part 1, you will examine current research; enhance your capacity to build a comprehensive literacy program; receive advanced instruction in the practices of teaching reading; and, develop strategies for constructing meaning and thinking critically about a variety of texts.

In addition, you will expand your examination of the critical link between assessment and effective instruction as it relates to the support students require to reach their full potential as readers. Finally, you will have opportunities to explore and discuss how to create rich reading tasks with co-created learning goals and success criteria to ensure the literacy development of all students.

Prerequisites

• Be a member in good standing with the OCT
• Part 1 completed
• Minimum ONE year of certified teaching experience by the first day of the course, subsequent to certification

Documents Required

• Signed Supervisory Officer’s Form by course end date confirming required teaching experience

Reading, Part 3 Specialist

The Additional Qualification Course: Reading Specialist prepares you for leadership by focusing your learning on the knowledge and skills related to literacy learning and instruction through the lens of the Lead Teacher. You will explore structures that support professional learning to bring about school-wide change and increased student engagement and achievement.

As potential/current leaders at the divisional/school/district level, you will investigate the inquiry question: How do I become an agent of change? Throughout the course, you will have opportunities to analyze and interpret data and to moderate student work. These opportunities are embedded in ways that support teacher-leaders for building capacity to work with school-based colleagues in the co-construction of professional learning opportunities to close existing gaps in the working environment. You will collaborate in exploration of current research and effective practices in literacy development, current assessment strategies, and the use of date to move thinking and action forward in both students and educators.

Prerequisites

• Be a member in good standing with the OCT
• Part 2 completed
• Minimum TWO years certified teaching experience by the first day of the course, subsequent to certification including ONE year in Reading

Documents Required

• Signed Supervisory Officer’s Form by course end date confirming teaching experience

• Organizer: York University
• Cost: $685.00 See website for complete details.
• Location: M. M. Robinson High School
• Address: 2425 Upper Middle Rd
• City: Burlington
• Province: Ontario
• Country: Canada
• Postal Code: L7P 3N9
• Website: http://edu.yorku.ca/profdev/
• Contact: Office of Professional Learning
• Phone: 416-736-5003
• Fax: 416-736-5023
• Email: [email protected]