Our Vision
A community of learners committed to fostering educational opportunity through literacy learning, instruction and scholarship.
Our Mission
- Refine literacy theory, knowledge and practice through teaching, research and service.
- Develop communities and settings that facilitate literacy learning and support teaching.
- Integrate teaching, research and service on literacy and instructional systems technology.
- Build local, national and international partnerships to foster literacy and application of instructional systems technology.
The Reading and Language Arts department supports the development of content knowledge and expertise in the areas of reading and writing processes, language arts, children’s literature, and the use of technology in literacy learning and instruction. The RLA department fosters an integrative approach to literacy instruction that includes oral language skills, reading, writing, viewing and multi-media forms of communication. The department has historically operated from a broad language arts perspective, having deep roots in the language experience approach to literacy instruction. This tradition and perspective is compatible with our current orientation toward cognitive and socio-cultural approaches to learning and instruction of multiple literacies.
