Professional Development

MindPlay Launches New PD Course for Reading

• By Christopher Piehler
• 12/10/14

Literacy publisher MindPlay has launched a new professional development course designed to teach K-12 educators effective reading instruction strategies. MindPlay Teacher Companion is coauthored by Nancy Mather, Blanche Podhajski, Janice Sammons and Marilyn Varricchio.

Teacher Companion is an online reading program that uses a combination of lectures, videos, written information and activities, organized into eight modules, to help teachers gain a more complete understanding of how the English language works and what every student needs to become a proficient reader. Topics covered include phonological awareness, phonics, grammar, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Teachers can earn up to eight hours of professional development credit for successfully completing the course.

Every section of Teacher Companion covers multiple instructional topics, and contains pretests and post-tests. Teachers earn mastery of a section when they have completed all of the instructional topics and score 100 percent on the post-test. If a teacher answers any item on the post-test incorrectly, he or she will be redirected to a specific instructional section to review and then be given another opportunity to answer.

Teacher Companion features a review mode, in which teachers can review sections that they have already mastered. Any teacher logged into the Teacher Companion can access review mode.

MindPlay Teacher Companion is available online now as an unlimited site license for $999.