Literacy Program

Program Overview

As a literacy leader in your school, you can have a profound impact on the children you serve, the school in which you teach, and the community your school supports. In the Literacy Education MAE, you will develop the skills required of literacy specialists.  You will build your understanding and skills in the areas of foundational literacy based on the science of reading, cultural and linguistic diversity that impacts literacy in our classrooms, disciplinary literacy and the needs of the adolescent learner, and assessment and intervention of struggling and striving readers and writers.

This program consists of 30-hours of graduate level coursework. Initial courses serve to lay a foundation of literacy understandings and to add nuance to the knowledge you bring to the program. The more advanced courses include serving in the WKU Literacy Clinic (virtual) in which you are coached in building responsive instruction upon assessment results for a full year (fall and spring) to support the literacy development of a striving reader. You will also take coursework in literacy coaching and leadership and ultimately create a Literacy Leadership Project, which will be the culmination of your learning and work in the program. Our graduates serve as classroom teachers, community literacy advocates, literacy coaches and specialists in schools and districts, and state literacy coaches.