Week of October 1
Module 0
From Birth to Decoding — What Older-Student Specialists Need to Know
Participants begin with an optional foundations module covering the early Science of Reading. Educators who already have strong knowledge of early reading development may take an opt-out quiz and move directly into the older-student modules. This bridge module includes oral language development, phonological and phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, decoding, orthographic mapping, early fluency, and the transition from learning to read to reading to learn.
Key question
What early reading knowledge do specialists working with older students still need?
Participants will learn to
- Explain how early oral language supports later reading
- Distinguish phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, and fluency
- Understand why some older students still struggle with foundational word-reading skills
- Decide when early-reading assessment is still relevant for older readers
- Connect foundational skills to later vocabulary and comprehension development
Assessment: Optional opt-out quiz for participants with prior Science of Reading training.
Week of October 8
Module 1
Beyond Early Reading Science
This module introduces the central argument of the course: the Science of Reading is not only about early decoding. For older students, word recognition remains important, but reading success increasingly depends on vocabulary, language comprehension, background knowledge, syntax, discourse, writing, motivation, and disciplinary learning. Participants will examine models such as the Simple View of Reading, Scarborough's Reading Rope, constrained and unconstrained skills, and expanded views of comprehension that better account for text, task, discipline, and student variability.
Key question
What changes when students move from early reading into adolescent literacy?
Participants will learn to
- Explain why early reading models are necessary but insufficient for older students
- Distinguish constrained skills from unconstrained skills
- Identify common misunderstandings about the Science of Reading in secondary contexts
- Recognize why older struggling readers may need different kinds of support
- Use reading models to frame better intervention decisions
Inside the Research
How reading development changes as students age, and why vocabulary and verbal ability become increasingly central to reading comprehension.
Week of October 15
Module 2
From Low Scores to Useful Literacy Profiles
Older students who score below grade level do not all have the same needs. Some struggle primarily with decoding or fluency. Others have difficulty with vocabulary, syntax, comprehension monitoring, background knowledge, writing, or the language demands of specific disciplines. Many students have overlapping needs. This module helps participants move from a single reading score to a practical working profile that can guide instruction and intervention.
Key question
How do we move from “below grade level” to a useful plan for support?
Participants will learn to
- Interpret reading data without overdiagnosing from one score
- Identify likely profiles of older struggling readers
- Distinguish word-recognition, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and knowledge-related needs
- Use profile thinking to select strategies and interventions
- Connect student profiles to Reading Ways Pathways supports
Inside the Research
Academic vocabulary and reading proficiency research showing that strong readers are more likely to know academic words, and that word features interact with reader proficiency.
Week of October 22
Module 3
Morphology, Polysemy, and the Language of Learning
This is one of the signature modules of the course. Older students need more than definitions. They need to learn how words work across contexts: word parts, related forms, multiple meanings, grammatical uses, collocations, discipline-specific meanings, and abstract extensions. Participants will learn a practical framework for supporting the language of learning: the precise, flexible, and often abstract vocabulary students need to learn new content and communicate complex ideas.
Key question
What does it mean to know a word well enough to use it for learning?
Participants will learn to
- Teach morphology as a tool for word learning
- Support students with polysemous words and multiple meanings
- Distinguish word familiarity from deep word knowledge
- Use word families, examples, non-examples, and context comparison
- Design short routines that build flexible academic word knowledge
- Understand five dimensions of word features: frequency, complexity, proximity, polysemy, and diversity
Inside the Research
The course draws on work identifying five core dimensions of lexical features — frequency, complexity, proximity, polysemy, and diversity — and on research arguing that academic vocabulary is best understood as part of a broader language of learning.
Week of October 29
Module 4
Choosing Words That Help Students Learn
The Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 vocabulary framework is useful, but it can also be oversimplified. Older students need high-utility academic words, but they also need words that unlock specific content, concepts, arguments, and disciplinary ways of thinking. This module focuses on strategic word selection and the relationship between vocabulary, background knowledge, and text comprehension.
Key question
Which words are worth teaching, and why?
Participants will learn to
- Use Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary categories thoughtfully
- Avoid overreliance on word lists
- Select words that support comprehension, discussion, and writing
- Connect vocabulary instruction to background knowledge
- Build text sets that deepen both knowledge and language
- Support multilingual learners and international school students with vocabulary demands
Inside the Research
Participants examine evidence that vocabulary knowledge should be understood as part of a broader, interconnected language system, not simply as isolated knowledge of “academic words.” Research using data from 14,779 middle school students found evidence that academic and general vocabulary measures reflected a common underlying vocabulary construct.
Week of November 5
Module 5
Helping Students Use Reading to Think
Comprehension strategy instruction works best when strategies help students do meaningful intellectual work: identify claims, track evidence, compare ideas, build arguments, ask questions, and participate in discussion. This module focuses on practical routines that help older students use reading, writing, and talk to learn.
Key question
How do we help students use reading to build, organize, and communicate ideas?
Participants will learn to
- Teach note-taking as a thinking tool, not a compliance task
- Help students identify claims, evidence, reasons, and counterarguments
- Use discussion and debate to deepen vocabulary and comprehension
- Support struggling readers in academic conversations
- Design routines that connect reading, speaking, and writing
- Help students use target vocabulary productively
Inside the Research
Participants examine classroom-based research on structured vocabulary review, discussion, debate, and purposeful word use. In one randomized study of middle-grade classrooms, structured vocabulary review improved the likelihood of knowing reviewed words at post-test by approximately 13%.
Week of November 12
Module 6
What Scores Can and Cannot Tell Us
Assessment should help educators make decisions. This module focuses on how to interpret screeners, diagnostic tools, vocabulary measures, comprehension assessments, curriculum-based evidence, and classroom data. Participants will learn why some literacy skills are easier to measure and monitor than others, and why vocabulary and comprehension require careful interpretation.
Key question
How do we use assessment to guide support without reducing students to scores?
Participants will learn to
- Distinguish screening, diagnostic assessment, progress monitoring, and outcome measurement
- Understand constrained and unconstrained skills in assessment
- Interpret assessment results in relation to student profiles
- Avoid overclaiming from limited data
- Use multiple measures to guide intervention planning
- Connect assessment evidence to instructional decisions
Inside the Research
Participants examine explanatory item response models and learn why assessment performance depends on both student characteristics and item or word features.
Week of November 19
Module 7
Designing Support That Works in Real Schools
Adolescent literacy intervention cannot live only in a pull-out room. Students need coherent support across intervention, ELA, content-area classrooms, special education, multilingual learner services, and school leadership. This module focuses on MTSS, school-level intervention design, team routines, and the practical realities of supporting older struggling readers.
Key question
What does effective literacy support look like across classrooms, interventions, and school systems?
Participants will learn to
- Design secondary literacy supports across Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3
- Align intervention with classroom literacy demands
- Use student profiles to guide small-group support
- Plan data meetings that lead to instructional action
- Support teachers without asking every content teacher to become a reading specialist
- Connect Reading Ways Pathways to school-level implementation routines
Inside the Research
Participants examine studies of school-level language and vocabulary interventions, including what they reveal about implementation, variability, and the challenge of scaling literacy support.
Week of December 3
Module 8
Reading and Writing Across the Disciplines
Older students do not simply read harder texts. They read different kinds of texts for different purposes across different disciplines. Reading in science, history, math, literature, technical fields, and civic life requires different kinds of attention, language, evidence, and reasoning. This final module connects disciplinary literacy and writing instruction to student profiles, vocabulary learning, comprehension routines, and intervention planning.
Key question
How do we help older students read, write, and reason across disciplines?
Participants will learn to
- Distinguish disciplinary literacy from generic content-area reading strategies
- Support vocabulary and concept learning in science, history, math, and technical subjects
- Teach students to use evidence differently across disciplines
- Connect writing instruction to reading comprehension
- Design supports for argument, explanation, comparison, and synthesis
- Complete a Pathways-aligned literacy support plan
Inside the Research
Capstone: Participants complete a practical support plan for one student, small group, school team, or implementation context.
Week of November 26
Flex Week
Flex Week and Case Clinic
This week is reserved for catch-up, reflection, and implementation support. Because this week overlaps with the U.S. Thanksgiving period, the live session may be replaced by an optional office hour, asynchronous Q&A, or recorded case response.
Participants may use this week to
- Catch up on videos and quizzes
- Submit questions for response
- Revise student profile drafts
- Prepare capstone plans
- Share implementation challenges
- Review prior Q&A recordings
