Comprehension Strategies for Middle and Upper Grades

(Grades 4-12) / Flex Course

PDI Course Number: 74T02 / UCSD Course Number: EDUC41476

Course Description

Are you concerned about students who read the assigned text or chapter yet have little or no comprehension of the content upon completion? Effective comprehension skills are critical for students in the upper grades, as they are exposed to more difficult content reading. This online course provides teachers with excellent strategies designed to boost both comprehension and retention. Teachers will learn successful comprehension-building strategies such as DRTA, SQ3R, and close reading. Teachers will also learn tools and techniques to help students learn how to infer, draw conclusions, and summarize. Teachers will receive resources that can be used to teach students about the different text structures and patterns of organization, and how they can use that information to improve their comprehension. Guided comprehension strategies will also be explored. Teachers will also learn how to conduct quick assessments in order to identify struggling readers so that they may offer the necessary support to help those students find success. Teachers will also be presented with ways in which students can perform their own self-assessment so they learn how to discover when their comprehension is off track. Finally, teachers will learn how to help build students’ vocabulary in order to improve comprehension skills. By the end of this course, teachers will have gained many strategies to help improve their student’s comprehension. This course is worth 3 ⅓ semester units/5 quarter units (50 hours of training) from University of California San Diego (UCSD) Division of Extended Studies. For detailed information on university credit, click here.

"The strategies in the course will be extremely helpful to me. I am excited to get started. My students will never be bored!" - Donna Snyder