Certification as a Certified Academic Language Practitioner (CALP) is possible with Language Foundations training.  This certification is appropriate for Elementary Teachers, Special Education Teachers, Interventionists, and Reading Specialists.

The Scottish Rite Learning Center of South Texas (SRLC) is offering Language Foundations, an Orton-Gillingham based, comprehensive, balanced approach to the basics of language arts instruction in the elementary classroom.  The comprehensive curriculum includes: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading, and spelling and can be used with any basal reading program.  The curriculum delivers the complete range of phonemic awareness activities and the forty-four sounds and ninety-eight spellings of the English language in a sequential, multisensory, repetitive, spiraling approach.  The nine sections of the daily lesson can be delivered in 40-45 minutes.  Each lesson includes a decodable story for fluency development with comprehension questions.

Teachers will learn multisensory methods for teaching decoding, comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and composition that can be integrated within existing language arts curricula as well as systematic, structured, sequential and discovery-based instructional techniques. Language Foundations is well aligned with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for English Language Arts and Reading and can be used for Tier 1, 2 or 3 instruction.

Lesson components:

• Phonological Awareness (rhyme, segmentation, manipulation, blending, etc.)
• Alphabet Activity (letter recognition, sequencing, alphabetizing)
• Reading Decks (review of all previously introduced graphemes)
• Spelling Deck (review of all previously introduce phonemes)
• New Learning (explicit, multisensory introduction of new material)
• Sight Words (focus on 10 words over four lessons)
• Reading Practice (single word decoding and connected text)
• Spelling Practice (words and sentence dictation)
• Review (new material and previously taught concepts)

Package Includes Tuition and Materials

• Language Foundations Teacher’s Manual and Resource Guide with reproducible student pages

• Peripherals include: student manipulatives, primary reading deck, advanced reading deck, spelling deck, sight word deck, grammar deck, sequencing deck, syllable division deck, prefix deck, root deck, suffix deck, schedule

• Manipulatives include: Simultaneous Oral Spelling (SOS) chart, Watch Our Writing (WOW) chart, dictation chart

• 5 sample student kits include: 3-D letters, alphabet mat, desk size alphabet strip, mirrors

Requirements for certification on completion of Language Foundations:

• Bachelors Degree from an accredited university

• Attend 8-day training

• Complete all practica

Requirements for Academic Language Practitioner Training Program:

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university

• Complete the eight day Language Foundations training

• Complete reading assignments

• SRLC exit exam at final seminar

• Complete a minimum of 60 hours and a minimum of 104 lessons over a nine month period

• Begin the curriculum at least two times

• Complete five (5) teaching demonstrations of an entire lesson, showing progress through the curriculum to be critiqued by an SRLC Qualified Instructor (QI)

Graduates of the SRLC Academic Language Practitioner Training Program will receive a certificate of completion with the title of Academic Language Practitioner and be eligible to sit for the national Alliance Exam administered by the Academic Language Therapy Association (ALTA) to become Certified Academic Language Practitioners (CALP).  Graduates with will be eligible to apply to become a Licensed Dyslexia Practitioner, as defined by Texas HB 461 as defined by Texas HB 461 (2009 Session of the Texas Legislature).

Incorporating observation, lecture, and practicum, the ALP instructional content includes:

1. Knowledge of the field of dyslexia and related written-language disorders

2. Reading development and instruction

3. Structure of written language

4. Instructional strategies

5. Knowledge of multisensory, structured language based methods

6. State, federal, and local learning disability and dyslexia legislation, guidelines and practices

7. Professional writing skills, practice management and ethics

Language Foundations Tuition and Materials: $1500