Students will gain an understanding of five phases of Literacy: Awareness and Exploration; Experimental Reading and Writing; Early Reading and Writing; Transitional Reading and Writing; Independent Reading and Writing. Students will learn how to integrate literacy across all curricula in the forms of reading, writing speaking, listening, and viewing. They will be able to identify, assess, adapt and implement a variety of strategies that take into account children with special needs. Further, students will be able to recognize the impact of cultural, linguistic, and other diversities that affect engagement in literacy learning and they will be able to identify and utilize effective teaching strategies that address these differences. This course also requires a weekly field experience in a pre-school setting.