This course prepares prospective teachers to blend evidence-based phonemic awareness, phonics, word identification, and spelling instruction strategically into an integrated language arts approach to teaching literacy. Major topics include the development of children's phonic/spelling knowledge; what teachers should know about language; informal techniques to assess children's early literacy, word identification, and spelling understandings; systematic and meaningfully applied instruction to meet development, cultural, and linguistic differences; and communicating with parents and professionals about phonics and/or spelling.