This six-credit block of courses integrating concepts of children’s literature, literacy development, and materials for teaching reading with concepts of literacy instruction more broadly. Students examine the developmental nature of literacy, exploring issues surrounding the development of phonemic awareness, issues of phonics, comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary, while exploring appropriate methods and materials used for teaching students in the elementary classroom to become literate as readers and writers of diverse kinds of texts, as speakers, as listeners and thinkers. Other issues include attention to using textbooks and tradebooks, research on motivation, family literacy, and effect of gender and culture on literacy development. Opportunity is provided to engage in, and analyze, actual and simulated classroom instruction. This course fulfills a Maryland certification requirement in the teaching of reading. Prerequisites: EDUC 530 and EDUC 540.