Reading Specialist

I would have said a Reading Specialist is someone with a Master’s in Reading. But I could be wrong about that. It’s an assumption on my part that I’ve long made but never confirmed.

i WAS TOLD BY OUR SCHOOLS’S SPEC ED COORDINATOR THAT cALIFORNIA NO LONGER HAS SPECIALISTS WITH THAT DESIGNATION! (sorry for the caps)

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Cal State offers a Masters of Science in Educatino with a concentration in Reading and also offers a Reading/Language Arts Specialist Credential as well.
The Reading/language arts specialist credential one needs a BA, have a decent GPA, have either a multiple subject or single subject teaching credential and successfully taught in a classroom setting for a minimum of 3 years in any grades from preschool through adult. This can not include student teaching, intership or teaching with an emergency credential.

The program is designed to help qualified individuals gain the technical knowledge and scholarship requisite to becoming reading/langauge arts specialists. The professional program is based on and combined with sound prepration in the liberal arts and sciences. The curriculum proposes an interdisciplinary approach to the preparation of the professional specialist in reading/language arts.

I also know that one has to pass the RICA which is a Reading test.for the credential too..So perhaps things are changing and my catalogue is out of date but as of 18 months ago I knew students who were in this program and graduating with their masters in reading…

I live in the state of R.I.

I think the University of LaVerne also offers a Reading Specialist Credential. I believe the requirements for the program are similar.

However, in my school district (in Southern California) there was a job opening for a reading specialist a few months ago and the only requirement I saw on the job listing was a multiple subject teaching credential.

I’ve taught in a number of diferent jurisdictions in several US states and Canadian provinces, and basically, the official “reading specialist” in a school is whoever the authorities decide to pick for the job. In most of the schools I’ve been in, the “reading specialist” has been a nice person who usually but not always has a teaching certificate, and who some time or another took a few university courses or summer cram sessions in the teaching of reading. Some of these people work very hard to learn as much as possible and to help their students as much as possible, and others are pure time-servers (and as usual, the possession or not of an advanced degree makes little difference to their dedication or effectiveness.)

We have a “reading specialist” in our school. She used to work primarly with groups of children that needed the extra help. This year they have her working primarly taking care of all the “testing” that has overtaken our school system. What a waste…took a qualified “teacher” and turned her into a full-time paper pusher.

Maybe that’s what the coordinator meant - that LAUSD at least is not obligated to hire or contract with an actual specialist in reading per se. Thanks.

Hi Amy,
Yes, it’s not an obligation at L.A. Unified and surrounding districts, but some schools (and smaller districts nearby) have a “reading specialist” (usually a teacher who has taken a few classes in reading).

Unfortunately for people interested in working as a reading specialist in Southern California there seems to be few jobs. I was told a better choise would be the SLP program.

Also, next year many reading intervention and teacher’s aide positions will be eliminated due to budget cuts (thanks to our govenor).

The answer to your question, it depends on what you mean by “reading specialist”. Most Bachelor’s degree programs do not include enough reading courses to make teachers reading “specialists”.

However, I got my master’s degree in reading, and do not feel that my fellow classmates are qualified to teach reading to LD students. I was trained in Orton-Gillingham procedures for teaching reading to reading disabled students at one university before I moved and went to this second university, and none of what I learned in my practicum at the first university was taught at the second. The second university taught all “whole-language/whole word” strategies which is contrary to the research done by Dr. G. Reid Lyon (director of reading research at the National Institutes of Health) and NIH researchers at 11 universities over the last 33 years.

So, in my opinion, a master’s degree in reading may make a person a more knowledeable about reading in general, but not necessarily a “specialist” qualified to instruct learning disabled readers.

The university that I go to has a reading specialist MA program and a certificate and they have some top notch scholars and researchers there. One is Hallie Yopp, PhD and the other is Ashley Bishop PhD. They live, breathe and teach phonemic awareness and reading. Ashley Bishop is an interesting person. He told all the grad students in his class about his life…As a child he was held back several times because he couldn’t read. Eventually he learned how to read but because of his problems in learning to read it became a life long pursuit for him to teach people how read and then to teach teachers how to teach children to read.

We would go round and round in the classroom when I was in there. I was the know it all speech lady who was taking a class in his reading program that I needed for my SDC credential. We had fun even though he gave me a super hard time…I learned a ton from him and the resources I got from him are great too.

Thanks. The school actually has an intervention teacher for reading - but she is just a retired teacher, not a specialist. My son’s resource teacher only uses Open Court, which is what the school uses. I gave her Reading Reflex, but it’s been way over a month and she doesn’t have time to look at it (or get on these boards, which I also told her about). I don’t know what to do for my son this summer - the summer resource program is a distance away, and if they’re not going to remediate him, I don’t want to ruin his summer. Last year I sent him to an ed therapist twice a week for an hour just to minimize regression, and he was still able to go to camp (he’s 7 and a twin). Lindamood-Bell was too expensive at the center. Sorry for such a long (but heartfelt) response.

Hi Amy,
Our previous school used Open Court and I think it’s better than what our current school uses. It’s some weird poetry phonics which I suspect is worthless.

Is there any way you can do RR with your son this summer? I used it with mine last year and it was very easy to do.

One more idea, if you are anywhere near Encino (in the San Fernando Valley) there’s a very good private school that uses LMB, fastforword and lots of other stuff. They have a summer program and even offer some tutoring. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll go look up the name and number for you.