EDUC 9N523 - Reading, Specialist
Programming Description
The Reading, Specialist course is designed to help you deepen your expertise in fostering literacy excellence and leading evidence-based reading initiatives. You will explore how reading develops across contexts, examine the progression of foundational and disciplinary literacy skills, and strengthen your understanding of how learners acquire and apply literacy over time.
Throughout the course, you will engage with advanced, research-informed instructional approaches, including targeted strategies for intermediate and senior learners and assessment practices that support responsive, data-driven instruction. You will also consider how to build engaged and motivated readers through inclusive, community-centered practices.
By the end of the course, you will be prepared to guide literacy learning with confidence and equity-focused leadership, applying your knowledge to support students, colleagues, and school literacy initiatives.
Learner Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will
• apply ethical professional identity, leadership, advocacy and collective practices to inform program planning
• integrate Indigenous histories, perspectives and knowledge systems in teaching and learning processes
• analyze policies, processes and practices that foster innovation, culturally inclusive pedagogies and the democratization of knowledge
• implement equitable program planning that responds to learner needs, including the curation of evidence-based resources
• advocate for resources, services and communities of support that address the cognitive, social, emotional, physical and contextual needs of learners
• design inclusive learning environments that foster learner agency, voice, choice, diversity and social justice
• explore program design and implementation that align with Ontario curriculum principles, processes and related policies
• integrate environmentally sustainable policies, pedagogies and practices that promote ecological justice
• foster research, professional learning communities and interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance knowledge, collective efficacy and innovation
Prerequisites
1. OCT MEMBERSHIP showing completion of Part 2
2. CONFIRMATION OF TEACHING EXPERIENCE FORM Signed by a Supervisory Official* from your School Board confirming that you have two years (388 days) of teaching experience since becoming a certified teacher, one year (194 days) of which is in the subject area of this course.
