A practicum was designed to improve the literacy instruction of first-grade students by increasing the first grade teachers' and reading specialists' understandings of current research and theory. A graduate-level 3-hour course was developed and adopted by a local state university to assist teachers in understanding and utilizing the most current research regarding emergent literacy and early literacy. The course was designed to balance current theory and research with the practical application of the results. Teachers learned how to administer the Observation Survey and became very adept at taking a running record and analyzing it. The emphasis of the class for the teachers was on the practical application of theory and on reflection of their teaching practices. Analysis of the data revealed that the teachers were able to make shifts in their thinking and practices as evidenced by their end-of-course oral presentations. These presentations demonstrated a reading and writing unit that reflected both current theory and practice. The end-of-course evaluations were quite positive and indicated the significance of the course on their understanding of emergent literacy. (Contains 25 references and 3 tables of data. Appendixes present a checklist for evaluating running records and a scoring rubric.) (Author/RS)