Reading Essentials

Cognitive science and the gift of fluency for all

What you'll learn:

• Focus on the crucial determinants of reading acquisition for various languages and scripts
• Distinguish among methods that are more and less effective for low-income students
• Critically study evaluations and reports about various reading programs
• Evaluate and select reading specialists and consultants
• Discuss how textbooks should be designed and formatted to facilitate reading acquisition
• Advise decision makers on reading issues in various languages and scripts
• Propose strategies for eliminating illiteracy in schools of various low-income countries

Governments and international agencies have invested heavily in education systems, in hopes of making students literate. Literacy has become a global priority. Despite increased enrollments, many students in low-income countries or areas fail to learn and drop out illiterate.

Education for all literally means that nearly all children and adults who study reading must become fluent readers. How best to achieve this goal in low-income areas, which principles to use for teaching all students to read? One widely accepted source is the operation of our memory. We all retain material most easily if we learn it according to the ways we process information.

This course presents reading from the perspective of cognitive science. It covers all aspects of basic literacy: from visual perception to automaticity, from teacher training to project implementation and selection of specialists. You will surely find some little-known reading aspects that are counterintuitive and intriguing. Emphasizing those in instruction makes the process feasible for all.