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Reading Education: Professional Learning

UVA's Reading Education Professional Development offerings help educators to strengthen their knowledge about the science of reading. Online credit and non-credit courses, in-person workshops and coaching opportunities for schools and districts.

At a Glance

Program Results

Professional Learning

Reading Professional Development Offerings

  • Online Non-Credit Courses
  • Online Credit-Earning Courses
  • In-Person Half-Day Workshops
  • Coaching for Schools and School Districts

Program Type

  • Part Time

Location

  • In-Person
  • Online

Estimated Length

Varies by professional learning option

Application Deadline

Varies by professional learning option

About This Program

UVA's Reading Professional Development offerings give educators the opportunity to strengthen their knowledge of the science of reading and improve their ability to translate that knowledge into classroom instruction. 

  • Individual educators can enroll as a non-degree student and take a variety of literacy-related credit-bearing courses.
  • Current Virginia PreK-12 educators may qualify for discounted tuition for credit-bearing courses.

Reading Professional Development Offerings for Individuals

Credit-Bearing Graduate Courses

If you are considering applying to the M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction - Reading Education program, you should take the first two courses in the sequence: 

  • EDIS 7700: Reading Foundations for Diverse Learners (offered Fall, Spring, Summer) 
  • EDIS 7720: Understanding the Code: Phonics, Phonological Awareness, Orthography (offered Fall, Spring, Summer) 

Additional credit-bearing Reading Education courses you could take as a non-degree student: 

  • EDIS 7710: Reading and Writing Across the Content Areas (offered Fall, Spring, Summer) 
  • EDIS 5410: Young Adult Literature (typically offered Spring & Summer) 
  • EDIS 7310: Children’s Literature (typically offered Fall & Summer) 

 

Tip: Many non-degree seeking students choose to enter a graduate program in the future.  Keep in mind that only 6 credits taken in non-degree status may be applied toward a Master’s or Ed.S. program.

To learn more about these individual courses, visit the Graduate Record website. These web pages represent the official repository for academic program requirements. A link to these publications can be found in the Curriculum Information section at the bottom of this page.

Professional Learning Admission

Educators who are interested in taking individual professional development courses will first have to register as a non-degree student using our application portal. After registering through the application portal, you will be emailed instructions for self-registering for the course you are interested in.

Register Here

Non-Credit Professional Learning Courses

The school periodically offers online, self-paced non-credit professional learning reading courses. You do not need to enroll as a non-degree student to take these courses. Each course is worth five hours of professional development.

No individual non-credit professional learning offerings are available at this time. 

Options for Schools and School Districts

School divisions may contract with the School of Education and Human Development to offer customized non-credit reading professional development through multiple modalities: online, in-person, or hybrid.

These non-credit professional development opportunities include:

  • Online Non-credit Courses: Individual courses can be stand-alone learning experiences, or courses can be combined into a larger professional development package.
  • Workshops: Half-day workshops in which participants receive current research and best practices on a literacy-related topic. 
  • Coaching

Reading Professional Development Topics

These topics are available for schools or districts to purchase for their staff as online courses or live workshops. Contact us for more information.

Course Description Target Audience
Components of Skilled Reading This course introduces the scientific evidence base related to reading development, including the component skills necessary for skilled reading. K-8
Explicit Instruction for Foundational Skills in Reading This course focuses on the principles of explicit instruction and introduces the components of a reading lesson grounded in these principles K-3
Reading Assessment & Data-Based Decision Making This course explores the purposes of screening, diagnostic, and progress-monitoring assessments, as well as ways to use assessment data to make instructional decisions. 4th-8th

 

Course Description Target Audience
Foundational Skills for Word Recognition This course introduces how students develop foundational phonics knowledge and decoding skills that facilitate word recognition, with special focus on phonemic awareness,
alphabet knowledge, and beginning phonics.		 K-3
Word Recognition: Strategy & Automaticity This course digs deeper into how students develop fluent word recognition, with special focus on more complex graphemephoneme associations, high-frequency words, and strategies for students who struggle with reading words in context. 1st-4th
Advanced Word Knowledge This course introduces complex orthographic rules of English spelling, demonstrates strategies for spelling and reading multisyllabic words, and emphasizes the importance of morphology knowledge for reading and spelling. 3rd-8th

 

Course Description Target Audience
Reading Comprehension in the Primary Grades  This course explores instructional approaches that support reading comprehension with the goal of increasing elementary students' language comprehension as they navigate complex text.  K-3 
Building Vocabulary in the Primary Grades  This course focuses on evidence-based practices for building vocabulary in the elementary grades, including strategies for teaching specific words and for building word learning skills.  K-3 
Comprehension: Vocabulary, Background Knowledge, & Inference  This course focuses on evidence-based practice for building vocabulary, background knowledge, and inference generation skills that support reading comprehension.  4th-8th 
Comprehension: Strategies & Text-Based Approaches  This course explains multiple evidence-based approaches to reading comprehension instruction.  4th - 8th 
Course Description Target Audience
Fluency  This course introduces reading fluency and provides research-based instructional strategies for building reading rate, accuracy, and expression.  K-5 
Writing  This course explores strategies to support elementary students with writing.  K-3 
Reading Instruction for Diverse Populations  This course focuses on subgroups of students who may need extra support to become proficient readers.  K-8 
Supporting Content Area and Digital Literacy Development  This course explores ways to support reading comprehension in content-area classrooms, as well as ways to support digital literacy development.  4th - 8th 

Contact Us

Disclosures

The information contained on this website is for informational purposes only. The Undergraduate Record and Graduate Record represent the official repository for academic program requirements. These publications may be found at http://records.ureg.virginia.edu/content.php?catoid=55&navoid=4441.