Master’s program promotes public literacy

By Jonathan McFadden

mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

Rock Hill will soon become a city full of proficient public school readers.

At least, that’s the aim of the new master’s of education in literacy program Winthrop is offering this summer.

The new two-year program, a revised edition of the master’s of education in reading, seeks to help meet current standards of the International Reading Association (IRA), said Jonatha Vare, department chair of curriculum and pedagogy in the College of Education.

Similar to the master’s in reading degree, the 36-semester-hour program serves to help prepare graduate students to become literacy teachers.

The new twist is that the program’s instructors will train their students to become literacy coaches.

By the program’s end, Vare said students will not only be prepared to be literacy teachers in their classrooms, but also in their schools and districts.

Another prominent component of the program is meeting the needs of students who have learning difficulties, Vare said. 

In a state where many students have limited English proficiency, it’s imperative teachers are able to teach those students well and, as coaches, help others teach them too. 

“South Carolina has literacy as a huge area of need,” Vare said. 

Midway through the program, students will take reading 620, which teaches them strategies for helping struggling learners.

Toward the end of the second year, aspiring literacy teachers or coaches will receive practical field experience in which they tutor actual students.

Alongside Elke Schneider and Shawnna Helf, Kavin Ming, program director for the literacy program, reviewed the old reading program and found it did not meet the standards of the IRA.

“We’re supposed to graduate literacy coaches, but we were not including literacy work or literacy-field-based experiences in our courses,” Ming said.

Once the weak link was found, Ming and the other two faculty members worked throughout the fall 2009 semester to create new course objectives and learning outcomes that would help form the content of new classes. 

Now, prospective teachers are able to undergo practical field experience and tutor students while serving as coaches to undergraduate students.

In order to become eligible for the program, prospective students must possess their South Carolina Class III Professional Certificate, which certifies them to teach in the state.

The department began receiving applications more than a year ago, though no new admissions were allowed.

“We finished up students who were currently in the pipeline to get the old degree,” Vare said. “We had to keep telling everybody, ‘You’ll have to wait a year.’”

After current reading degree students graduate in May, the new program will take effect in June. 

Due to the program requirements, both Ming and Vare anticipate many current teachers enrolling into the program.

Before becoming a certified literacy teacher, applicants must have at least two years of successful teaching experience.

To become a literacy coach, graduates must have five years of teaching experience.

Yet, the College of Education still plans to encourage their undergraduates to pursue the program, despite the prior teaching requirements, Vare said.

“We want our undergraduates to know that if they would like to go into it, they can apply as well,” Vare said.

Current undergrads will still have to have taught for two years before entering the program. 

Officially approved in January, the degree program was first considered by the Commission on Higher Education in October.

Applications to the program must be submitted by March so they will be reviewed by the department in April, Vare said.