Purpose

The purpose of the reading specialist internship is to provide a culminating, hands-on opportunity to be involved in the same literacy instruction issues and programs as school and district reading specialists around the country. The internship should involve working with other educators to improve reading and writing instruction at the school or district level. The internship should be under the direct supervision of someone knowledgeable about reading and internship should be under the direct supervision of someone knowledgeable about reading and writing pedagogy instruction at the school or district level. The student, having completed all other course work for the Utah Reading Specialist endorsement, will complete a 60-90 hour internship in one or more of the ways suggested below.

Course Objectives

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Work confidently with a school grade level team, a school faculty, or a school district to assess literacy instructional needs and then develop, implement, and monitor, and assess the effectiveness of an instructional improvement program.
• Understand the responsibilities associated with a curriculum leadership position.

Possible Internship Experiences

• Work with other educators to improve reading and writing instruction at the school and/or district level
• Apply research and theory to practice at the school and/or district level
• Take on a major role on a school/district reading textbook adoption committee
• Direct a teaching team in a school/department to help them improve or develop a component of their reading and writing instruction. This may include assessing instructional needs, clarifying improvements, collecting information, and developing materials and procedures.
• Coordinate the development of a school-wide reading improvement project. This may include organizing a family literacy program, developing a volunteer literacy program, encouraging home/school connections to support all children, enhancing classroom libraries, or similar project that will focus one school's attention on reading and writing.
• Coordinate a school or district level reading/writing professional development plan. This could include coordinating with teachers to determine professional development topics, working with administrators to obtain funding and providing credit, identifying and scheduling presenters, scheduling meeting times and location(s), advertising the professional development, serving as host, providing for in-class demonstrations and developing an in service assessment instrument.
• Evaluating school, department, and district literacy programs
• Identifying implementing, and evaluating technology-based literacy instruction.

Assignments

Prepare a brief proposal for the internship to include purpose, location, supervisor and evaluation plan. Upon completion of the internship, submit a brief written reflection on the internship experience.

Bibliography

National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Report available on-line at: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrppubskey.cfm.