Multisensory Strategies to Improve Literacy Outcomes, Peters, Fall 2025

Course Number:	EDX 5710 S13
Instructor:	Olga Peters, M.S.Ed.
Location:	This course is conducted online in an asynchronous and synchronous format. All Zoom sessions below will be 2 hours and exact dates will be set based on student availability. The course continues in an online independent format between Zoom meetings, with a final project due at the end of week six. Session 1: Oct 9, Session 2: Oct 16, Session 3: Oct 23, Session 4: Oct 30, Session 5: Nov 7, Session 6: Nov 14
Dates and Times:	Oct 06 – Nov 16, 2025
Credits:	3 Graduate Credits
Tuition:	$1,195

Course Description

Developing readers thrive when educators use targeted, structured, and intensive support. The course will focus on effective strategies for literacy instruction and diagnostic assessment. Before an educator can chart a plan for reading/writing success, they must know exactly where a student stands in literacy development. The course will suggest several screeners to evaluate students on the Reading Rope strands. Afterward, the course will demonstrate visual, kinesthetic, tactile, and audio (VKTA) strategies that support literacy development and align with the Science of Reading (SOR). These strategies can be used by any subject teacher who uses texts to deliver their content. The course will not suggest or endorse any cookie-cutter programs, rather, it will help educators identify the features that make literacy instruction effective.

Audience: K-12 Classroom teachers, Literacy Interventionists, Special Educators, all with a Bachelor's Degree

Course Goals & Objectives

Course Goals: Instructors will have a collection of assessment tools that correspond to the Scarborough Reading Rope. Instructors will be able to select and administer the screening tools and draw working conclusions regarding students’ weaknesses and strengths in the areas of reading and spelling.

Using the testing data, the appropriate sequence of structured literacy and SOR teaching strategies, instructors will be able to chart the learning path and create targeted interventions for a student or a group of students in order to close the reading achievement gaps.

Course Objectives:

Evaluate multiple sequences of structured literacy instruction to be able to choose the one that fits the needs of your students
Understand what adjustments must be made in the sequence based on the age of the students, cognitive profiles, and their current academic levels
Evaluate multiple versions of a lesson plan format that supports structured literacy
Enrich the diagnostic assessment toolbox to evaluate strands of Scarborough’s Reading Rope
Enrich the SOR strategy toolbox for developing phonemic awareness, decoding, spelling, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary skills.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Intro to the basics of the structured literacy approach

What every teacher needs to know

Principles of structured literacy instruction
Review of Scarborough Reading Rope
Terminology
Ages and stages of literacy development
Suggested sequence of literacy instruction K-3 and 4-adult (things to consider: age and reading gaps)
Important parts of a lesson plan to support structured literacy development
The place of handwriting in any instruction. Suggested 2-minute practice

Week 2: Reading assessments and result interpretation to create instruction and choose instructional methods

Every teacher needs to be able to read and interpret data

School-wide online screening tools
Tier 1, 2, 3 Informal Assessment tools (diagnostics, data interpretation)
Tier 3 Formal Assessments (diagnostics and to inform instruction, strategies, and goal setting)
Progress monitoring tools to facilitate immediate response
Tools to organize record-keeping

Week 3: Place of phonemic awareness and morphological awareness: T1, T2, T3

Intensive reading support

Exercises for Grades K-3 (Focus: phonemic awareness)
Exercises for Grade 4 - Adult (Focus: morphological awareness)
Sound mapping, word chaining, and word mapping as tools for intensive reading support (dyslexia, ASD, cognitive disabilities, etc.)

Week 4: Place of phonics and morphology instruction for reading and writing development

K-12 Teachers need to be able to explain how to read unfamiliar words in their content area

Suggested sequence based on the age and gaps of students
Strategies to teach spelling patterns (audio and visual drills)
Strategies to teach 6 types of syllables (manipulatives, highlighting, scooping, coding steps)
Strategies to teach multisyllabic words (scooping syllables, labeling, circling morphemes)
Strategies to teach Latin and Greek-based words
Strategies to teach Morphology (drills)

Week 5: Place of Grammar and Syntax instruction for reading and writing development

K-12 Teachers need to be able to provide the basic instruction for beginning writers and developing readers

Understanding the role syntax plays in writing and reading comprehension
Strategies to teach parts of speech (tactile, kinesthetic, index cards, visuals)
Strategies to teach simple, compound, and complex sentences (visuals and formulas)
Strategies to teach paragraph development by Diana King
Strategies to take a paragraph into an essay by William Van Cleave
The importance of teaching informational text structures and fictional text, and effective tools

Week 6: Place of Vocabulary Instruction for Literacy Development and Conclusions

K-12 Teachers need to be able to help students develop their content vocabulary

Main points to keep in mind for effective vocabulary instruction
Strategies for Vocabulary Instruction (rubric, tiers of vocab, graphic organizers)
Clarifications on terms: high frequency, regular, temporary irregular, irregular, and sight words.
How to convert all words into sight words: HFW Folders
Conclusions and questions

Required Texts

Required Texts are not included in the course tuition.

Moats, L. C. (2020). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers (3rd ed.). Paul H. Brookes.

The International Dyslexia Association. IDA Fact Sheet: Building Phoneme Awareness: Know what matters. 2022. Retrieve from https://dyslexiaida.org/building-phoneme-awareness-know-what-matters/

The International Dyslexia Association. IDA Fact Sheet: Morphological Awareness: One Piece of the Literacy Pie. 2020. Retrieve from https://dyslexiaida.org/morphological-awareness/

Moats, L. C. (2020) Evidence Changes Teaching Words 'by Sight.’ The Perspectives on Language and Literacy, Volume 56, No.1, pages 27 - 30. Retrieve from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eMG-SizZQckClRcAxXESL4KiSb8414Gi/view?usp=sharing

Diamond, L. and Thorsnest, B.J. (2018). Assessing Reading: Multiple Measures (2nd ed.) Arena Press.

William VanCleave. (2018) Writing Matters: Developing Sentence Skills in Students of All Ages. 2nd Ed. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rc4OaubehN-QwuDBGFYcL5iDdO83mIhe/view?usp=drive_link

Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read (3rd ed.). (2006). National Institute for Literacy, the Partnership for Reading. LINCS: Literacy

Information and Communication System.

For additional course information

Olga Peters

(262) 307-7712

For additional registration information

Center for Schools Team

(802) 468-1325