EDS 424 Literacy and Diagnostic Assessment for Students with Exceptional Learning Needs

3 Credit(s)

This course strengthens candidates’ understanding of the underlying causes of literacy difficulties and teaches the administration, analysis, and interpretation of both informal and formal assessments. Candidates will identify students’ learning strengths and needs, with particular attention to foundational skills in reading, such as phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, word analysis, spelling, comprehension, language development and writing. Curricular, cognitive, and achievement-based testing results will be examined to design and implement specific instructional recommendations in a multi-tiered system of support. Both standardized and non-standardized assessment tools in the fields of special education and literacy will be used for screening, diagnostic and progress monitoring purposes, creating goals and objectives, and designing and implementing lesson plans to best meet the needs of culturally, linguistically and academically diverse learners. Field experience required. Three lecture hours per week. Pre-requisites: EDS390, EDC415 and EDS410.