Overview.html

Welcome to the Master's Program area. If you are a prospective student, you will find what programs we offer, which ones you are eligible for, and which ones best suit your career aspirations. If you are already in our master's program, this is where you'll find everything you need to help you navigate your studies.

If you are a prospective student, read on!

If you are already in the program, use the menu to the left to take you where you want to go.

When our Department was first created in 1948, we had two master's programs: an MS in Reading Classroom Track that led to permanent certification in the area of a student's provisional certification, and an MS in Reading Reading Specialist K-12 that led to certification as a reading specialist. We trained literally thousands of classroom teachers and reading specialists during a fifty-year period. When the new teacher certification regulations came out in 1999, we completely revised our MS programs to meet the new requirements. We've kept the Classroom Track for students who still have time left with their provisional certification (no new students can be admitted to that track), but discontinued the Reading Teacher Specialist program in 2004. Now, we offer a full range of master's programs that prepare teachers and specialists (now called literacy specialists) for the new certification titles.

Our new programs provide:

• more practicum experiences within courses that lead to literacy specialist certificates
• more focused courses that differentiate between preschool, elementary, middle school, and secondary literacy theory and practice
• more attention to ensuring that the knowledge, dispositions and proficiencies we expect for professional teachers and specialists are built into every master’s level course
• more options for students to pursue the certification areas they wish to be prepared for.

Here's what we offer:

MS in Literacy, with three tracks (Literacy Specialist Birth-Grade 6, Literacy Specialist Grades 5-12, and Literacy Specialist Birth-Grade 12). If you want to be a literacy specialist--or a classroom teacher with a depth of knowledge about literacy and literacy difficulties--these are the programs for you.

MS in Early Childhood (Literacy). If you want to teach children in pre-school and up to Grade 2, this is the program for you.

MS in Childhood Education (Literacy), with two options--on campus, and online. If you want to teach children from grades 1 through 6 as a classroom teacher, this is the program for you. This program is also the only one we offer that allows you to take the entire degree ONLINE.

MS in Special Education/Literacy, with two tracks (SpEd/Literacy 40 hr, and SpEd/Literacy 67 hr). If you want to teach children with learning disabilities, but also be qualified as a classroom teacher (grades 1-6) and a literacy specialist (B-6), this program is for you. The 40-hour is a one-year, full-time program; the 67-hour is two years, full-time. However, you need no prior certifications to enter the 67-hour program (it's the only program we offer that has no certification prerequisites).

MS in Reading, with one track (Classroom), but offered both on campus and online). This program leads to permanent certification in the area of a provisional certificate, and prepares graduates for classroom positions. However, this program is ONLY for students who were admitted prior to Spring, 2005 with sufficient time left in their provisional certificate to complete their studies before the provisional expires. Since the last provisional certificates were issued in 2004, this program option will run only through 2009 (students receiving extensions would have until 2011 to finish). This program is not available to any new admits. We have only included it here so that students already in the program don't think it's been discontinued.

If you want a close-up view of any of these programs, just click on a program title in the PROGRAM PLANNING area (menu, left).

If you want to learn the prerequisites for each of these programs, click on Eligibility (menu, left, under OVERVIEW).

Last, but not least, here's what we claim for graduates of our MS programs:

Our program is designed to foster in our students a set of closely interrelated dispositions, pedagogical knowledge and teaching skills. For example, we expect that our graduates will be caring and responsive observers and listeners who theorize about their teaching and learning and know how to research their own practice. To do this requires that they know how to document and analyze students' learning and to critically analyze their own teaching. Our program is organized to produce self-extending learners who do not stop learning when they leave the program--who find learning about teaching and learning intellectually engaging, and who are professionally active, participating in professional networks. We expect our graduates to develop a model of inquiry into teaching, learning, and language, including their own. We have also organized experiences in the program such that students will develop facility in communicating with others about literacy teaching and learning, and in building collaborative solutions to instructional problems. We expect our graduates to be readers and writers themselves.

To learn more about our goals, and the competencies we expect our graduates to posses in the different degree titles, click on the MS Program Goals in the OVERVIEW area (menu, left).

We welcome your feedback! (email Sean Walmsley seanwalmsley@mac.com with "MS webpages comments" in the Subject Heading)

Last Updated: October 24, 2006