This graduate certificate is comprised of four required courses that encompass the key areas of literacy coaching: foundations of literacy learning, assessment, new literacy forms, and supervision of literacy program. The four courses are:

READ 614: Foundations of Literacy Learning

Surveys theories and historical trends leading up to present day literacy instruction. Participants will learn how to incorporate application of current research to the methods and philosophies of teaching reading and writing. An integrated language model suggests that reading, writing, and thinking be viewed as interrelated, critical processes for exploring and responding to the world. Offers students an opportunity to acquire foundational knowledge of materials, instructional strategies, and assessment tools that support literacy and engaging learners.

READ 627: School-Wide Assessment and Professional Development

This course focuses on the literacy coach's roles and responsibilities in conducting school-wide, needs-based assessments and planning professional development to align with assessments. Multiple perspectives and approaches to considering, piloting, and administering needs-based surveys and analyzing data for schools and school divisions are explored and practiced. Using results, data-based professional development planning is studied and practiced. Through interactive online instruction, lecture, projects, and reflective participation based upon the International Reading Association's Standards and The Virginia Standards of Learning, a professional knowledge base will be developed. This course provides experiences on a variety of levels to further the development of the literacy coach within ODU's Educator as Professional Framework.

READ 628: New Literacies, Digital Technologies, and Learning

This course is designed to provide a context in which in-service teachers can explore a range of "new" literacies and consider their relationships to school-based literacy education. Participants will explore these new literacies, specifically the socially immersive experiences of youth and their new media practices. These participating educators will examine the role of multimodality in literacy learning across the curriculum with an emphasis on how to bridge the digital literacies of students' private lives with the traditional print practices valued in school. Teachers will gain insight into and understanding of how young people's participation in a shifting media landscape can help shape and form learning and literacy in the 21st Century classroom.

READ 685: Organizing and Supervising Reading Program Development

Presents an overview of the total school reading program (K-12), and not only prepares the prospective reading supervisor to make decisions pertaining to the procurement of materials for the program but also explores modes for integrating reading into the general curriculum. Prerequisites: 9 graduate hours in reading.