Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Effective Literacy Website #5: The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk by Pearl Hamada

Image from: https://meadowscenter.org/ 

    


    Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk (MCPER), https://meadowscenter.org/resources/, is a website affiliated with the College of Education at the University of Texas in Austin. They aim to share teaching strategies or information that promote reading, writing, math, STEM, early childhood, bilingual education, special education, cognitive psychology, and other educational topics. 


    On the MCPER website, educators can find the following tabs: Projects, Resources, and Academic Library. Meadows Center, supported by various non-profit organizations and other financial supports, has conducted many studies to determine the best and most up-to-date information on student learning that include literacy. Examples of the studies are “Interactive Read-Alouds for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten to Improve Literacy and Numeracy Skills,” “Parent-Led Reading Lessons,” or “Improving Reading and Reducing Reading Anxiety Among Students with Reading Difficulties.” In the “Parent-Led Reading Lessons” study, the user can read how parents believe that helping their children with reading at home is essential and the challenges they face in providing quality practices. In the “Overview” description, MCPER states that once the researchers complete their study, collaborating with parents, students, and the area’s school, free lesson plans may be downloaded within a given time frame. 


    When educators click on the Resources tab, educators and parents can download or view lesson plans, handouts, and other resources. Topic boxes can be found in the layout of the website. Once a user chooses a topic, such as the “Self-Regulated Teaching Guides for Teachers and Parents,” they will be taken to a “Description” of the resource. Two separate download links, available for a parent or teacher, can be found in the left panel of the screen. In the “Helping Your Child Become a Self-Regulated Reader” guide, parents can read what self-regulated reading is, why it is important, and how to provide practices at home. These practices include what to do before reading, during reading, and after reading. On the left panel, under the download links, parents can view the following about the resource: Published Date, Funding Source, Topic, Audience, Type of Resource, and Grade Level. 


    The MCPER website provides an overview of articles or presentations of their scholars and researchers in the Academic Library. The user can search through the collection by topic, grade level, or by typing in the search bar. A list of articles can be seen below the search option. The title, date, authors, topic, audience, and grade level(s) is provided for each item. One article, “The Differential Efficacy of a Professional Development Model on Reading Outcomes for Students With and Without Disabilities”, a brief description is provided discussing the study on the intervention “Check & Connect” with high school English learners who struggle with reading skills. A citation section is also provided as well as other articles published by the same author. On the left panel of the screen, the user can review when the article was published, type of resource, etc. 

Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk (MCPER) is an effective literacy website because it strives to provide high-quality academic information for reading, writing, and topics related to literacy. Whether the website user is a parent, a Special Education teacher, a GATE teacher, or an Early Childhood educator, this website will connect them to reading and language resources based on research-based strategies as they continue to improve their instruction for student learning success.





No comments:

Post a Comment

FAREWELL NOTE

     Ran annim, I am happy to say “farewell” to you all knowing that the word is just a marking point to the end of this short but challen...