Reading into UCI program

by Michael Miller – Daily Pilot – March 22, 2005

Extension courses slated to begin this summer will help teachers instruct English learners

Most teachers discourage drawing comics in class. Elizabeth Whitney encourages it - so long as it involves similes and metaphors.

Whitney, a sixth-grade teacher at Hutchinson Middle School in La Mirada, uses a special technique when teaching figurative language to her English students: She has them .illustrate phrases in comic book form.

Now, as a charter member of UC Irvine Extension's new Reading Certificate Program, Whitney plans to spread her strategy to public school teachers around Orange County.

"I think teacher need to experience themselves what they're going to teach to students," Whitney said. "Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." Whitney is among the instructors, all with kindergarten through 12th-grade and university experience, dated to teach in the Reading Certificate Program when it begins this summer. UCI recently got state approval for the 180-hour training program, in which teachers from local districts will fulfill the first half of the courses required to be a state certified Reading and Language Arts Specialist. UCI Extension does not currently offer the second half of the required courses, but officials expect to add it in the future.

The Reading Certificate Program, which will be offered on-site at individual districts, consists of five courses covering different reading and teaching methods. Participants in the courses will learn how to develop fluent readers and place reading assignments in a sociocultural context - a unit targeted particularly at schools with a high number of English-learner students. At the end of the program, participating teachers will use the material in a classroom setting with students.

"We want to be able to tailor our program to the specific needs of the school district," said Morgan Appel, the director of education programs for UCI Extension. "Orange County is a very diverse place and we want to accommodate geographical issues and language issues for each school." The probable start date of the program, Appel said, is in July.

UCI Extension plans to offer the courses all year. Any district in Orange County is eligible for the program, although so far, only the Anaheim City School District has expressed interest Diane Shimoda, the president of the Orange County Reading Assn. and an Anaheim City School District official, is among the instructors for the extension program. She said the literacy volunteers at her district are distributing Reading Certificate Program fliers to all 23 schools to determine interest among faculty.

"Their objective in going into this is that they would get their reading certificate," Shimoda said. "If they're teachers who need to move up in the pay scale, it would give them extra hours to do it."