To address a growing national demand for highly prepared reading and literacy specialists, Bank Street Graduate School of Education has announced a newly redesigned master’s degree program: Reading and Literacy: Inclusive Teaching. In response to changes in New York State’s certification requirements, the program has expanded its focus to teaching children and adolescents across all grades, from kindergarten through high school.
The Reading and Literacy: Inclusive Teaching program is designed for classroom teachers with initial New York State certification in early childhood or childhood general education or special education who seek to deepen their literacy teaching practices. The program leads to an additional certification as a literacy specialist that can open up opportunities to work as a reading intervention teacher, a school-based leader in literacy, and a classroom teacher with increased expertise in literacy. Students can complete the 33-credit program in 18 months while they continue teaching in their current positions.
Using multicultural literature as a foundation for teaching literacy, coursework integrates peer-reviewed reading research with practices that are informed by evidence-based teaching methods. Students critically examine foundational topics about oral language development, phonemic awareness, decoding and phonics, reading comprehension, writing, and assessments designed to guide differentiated instruction for a range of children including neurodiverse and multilingual learners.
Students explore the larger socio-cultural contexts of literacy education, including an historical review and the most recent iteration of reading methods, known as the Science of Reading. Students critically analyze the literacy programs currently used in schools to integrate culturally responsive methods to center children’s learning.
Supervised fieldwork at partner schools in New York City coordinates with coursework throughout the program, enabling students to make deep connections between theory and practice.
To learn more, please email gradadmissions@bankstreet.edu or call 212-875-4404 for a one-on-one conversation.