Curriculum Portfolio

Course Description

This course helps students improve their reading ability by focusing on the following: thorough comprehension of academic texts, implementation of reading strategies, acquiring academic vocabulary, extensive reading, and fluency. The texts used in this course are similar to those used at a university. 

Course Emphasis

Each percentage represents the amount of class time per week focused on the specified aspect. For example, 10% would equal approximately 25 minutes of class time each week. 

Please see the Assessments and Learning Experiences section below for more information about how to teach and assess each of the emphases. 

• Reading - 75%
  • Skills, strategies, & comprehension - 50%
  • Vocabulary - 10%
  • Fluency building - 10%
  • Oral fluency & pronunciation - 5%
• Listening/speaking - 15% 
• Writing - 5%
• Grammar - 5%

Course Books and Materials

Fall

• Ten Steps to Improving College Reading (Townsend Press), 978-1591945666
  • Online supplemental material and test bank 
    

Winter

• University Success Reading: Advanced Level (Pearson), 978-0137249893
  
  • Online supplemental material

Summer

• Critical Reading (ERPI), 978-2761356541
  
  • Online supplemental material

All Semesters

• Reading Horizons Library: Four levels of timed/repeated reading passages (class checkout in 103 and/or TRL)
• At least 2 books from the semester's UP Book List: Fall, Winter, Summer.
  • Teachers use discretion when deciding which books, how many books, and when.

Course Learning Outcomes

1. Understands level-appropriate* texts.
   1. Understands explicit main ideas.
   2. Understands implicit main ideas.
   3. Understands explicit major details.
   4. Understands implicit major details.
   5. Understands salient minor details.
   6. Understands author's purpose.
   7. Understands author's point of view.
   8. Identifies relationships among texts.
   9. Draws appropriate conclusions about relationships among texts.
   10. Maintains sufficient reading rate for comprehension. 
2. Effectively implements appropriate reading strategies.
   1. Previews texts for main idea.
   2. Scans texts for major and minor details.
   3. Recognizes organization patterns that may include atypical conventions.
   4. Connects content to background knowledge.
   5. Makes inferences about concrete and abstract ideas.
   6. Skims texts when appropriate.
   7. Improves reading rate. 
3. Acquires new vocabulary words.
   1. Uses context and background knowledge to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words.
      
   2. Uses syntactic and morphological cues to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words.
   3. Understands high-frequency academic vocabulary.
4. Reads level-appropriate text* aloud comprehensibly. 
   
   1. Pauses appropriately for punctuation (,:;—), at sentence boundaries (.?!), and passage transitions (titles, headings, paragraphs).
      
   2. Uses correct intonation at all sentence boundaries (.?!).
      
   3. Correctly pronounces high-frequency general and academic vocabulary.
      
   4. Maintains sufficient reading rate for comprehension.
      

*Level-appropriate text type information is found on the Level Descriptors page.

Assessments and Learning Experiences

Pronunciation

1. Oral Reading. While most reading happens silently, students will most likely be asked to read aloud at some point in many different settings, and therefore need to practice and improve their fluency in oral reading. Oral reading activities for all skill levels can focus on word-, sentence-, and passage-level fluency.

Reading

1. Assessment. Since the reading emphasis is compiled of various aspects of the course, assessment in this category involves more than one component. Such assessments should be done often to aid students in being able to evaluate their comprehension and mastery of the skills/strategies being taught.


2. Assigned Reading. Like with extensive reading, students engage in reading large amounts of text with various activities to check for comprehension and completion. In assigned reading, the ELC has determined appropriate books for the level (see your level's book list). Thus, during a semester, there can be a blend of both extensive reading and assigned reading.


3. Extensive Reading. Students engage in reading large amounts of text with various activities to check for comprehension and completion.


4. Fluency Building. Students should engage in fluency activities on a regular and consistent basis. Fluency activities should 1) be easy 2) focus on the main idea 3) encourage students to go fast 4) provide sufficient opportunities to practice.


5. Reading Skills & Strategies. Reading skills and strategies help learners improve their reading comprehension, independent of the language itself. Since the ultimate goal of all reading instruction is to help readers improve their overall comprehension and ability to use the information in a text, a significant portion of class time should be spent teaching and practicing reading skills and strategies. Which reading skills teachers should focus on in their particular class(es) is found in the Course Learning Outcomes.


6. TOEFL Practice (Academic Levels). Although beneficial, TOEFL practice should not become the sole focus of a reading class. All reading instruction and practice, if focused on the course learning outcomes, will help students to prepare for the TOEFL. However, in Academic level courses, occasional TOEFL-specific instruction and activities are recommended (but not required).

Vocabulary

1. Assessment. Even though vocabulary may already be assessed ELC-wide, vocabulary assessment can still occur within a Reading course. However, assessment should be focused on words discussed within the class or words from a specific context (i.e., a reading passage).


2. Productive Skills. In order to master the usage of vocabulary, students need to practice producing the target words. 


3. Receptive Skills. In order to better comprehend vocabulary, students need to receive instruction on and practice receptive vocabulary skills. 

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