Creating a Literate Environment

Get to Know the Learners

Find out about the “Whole child” (Laureate Education Inc., 2010b)

Identifying my student’s interests and motivations for reading was the beginning step to creating a positive and exciting feeling about reading

Motivation and Interest Assessments Elementary Reading Assessment Survey- Allowed me to

understand my students feelings on reading, when they enjoy reading, what kinds of books they enjoy, if reading is easy or difficult for them. http://www.professorgarfield.org/parents_teachers/pri

ntables/pdfs/reading/readingsurvey.pdf

Getting to Know the Learners

Observation Observation of student reading allowed me to

understand strengths and weaknesses in the five pillars of reading instruction. Five pillars

Phonemic Awareness Phonics Vocabulary Fluency Comprehension

(Laureate Education Inc., 2010f)

Getting to Know the learners

Sight Word Checklist By understanding my student’s sight word vocabulary, I

was able to gear instruction towards my learners individual levels.

Observation, conferencing with students, checklists and examining student work allow teachers to monitor students’ learning and plan instructional activities to best suit the needs of the learners (Tompkins, 2010).

Through assessment, I was able to gather information on my student’s interests and ability levels in order to determine the skills and strategies to create successful learning experiences.

Selecting Texts

When selecting texts for classroom instruction, it is important keep student needs and interests in mind as well as the goals of of students and how we as teachers are going to achieve those goals (Laureate Education Inc., 2010a).

Using the Literacy Matrix, I was able to choose texts that were appropriate for the type of lessons, students and focus of the lesson.

After finding a variety of texts, I chose the most appropriate texts to use for the focus of my lesson.

Selecting Text( Laureate Education Inc., 2010a)

Narrative Informational

Linguistic (words)

Semiotic (pictures)

• The Sunflower House, By, Eve Bunting

A Sunflower Grows Up, by Melvin and Gilda Berger(National Geographic website)• A House in a Tree

(Starfall.com)

• When Dad Cuts DownThe Chestnut Tree, By, Pam Ayers and Graham Percy

The PolinatorsNational Geographic Website

LITERACY MATRIX

Interactive Perspective

To teach students to become critical thinkers, we must guide them through the strategies in order to independently navigate text (Laureate Education Inc., 2010c). Modeling and scaffolding:

students are able to learn and begin to understand the strategies needed to become “good readers”

The stories The Sunflower House, by Eve bunting and One Bean, by Anne Rockwell were used to teach my students to make personal connections and discover rhyming words in the context of a story.

Interactive Perspective

Extended activities:Extended activities allow for students to practice

using the strategies independentlyAssessment allows the teacher to monitor student

learning and create further instruction when needed “The main reason for assessing strategies is to find

clues about what the student is not doing or what is being done incorrectly so that teachers can reteach better strategies” (Afflerbach, Pearson, Paris, 2008, p. 371).

Critical and Response Perspectives

Critical PerspectiveStudents learn to evaluate text in a deeper

perspective (Molden, 2007) Students question, examine and look beyond the text Look at author’s motivation for writing the text Look at author’s perspective on the text What message is the text sending to the reader

Critical and Response Perspective

Response PerspectiveReaders engage with the text and it changes

the way they may view things in their own life (Laureate Education Inc., 2010e)How does the story make the reader feelThe reader can identify his/her own feelings with

feelings within the textReader can relate to the text and include his/her own

personal experiences

Critical and Response Perspective

Response PerspectiveIncorporating reading and writing allows for the

students develop new knowledge and understand the text more thoroughly (Laureate Education Inc., 2010d)Journal writing Drawing picturesConnection stemsMulti-sensory approaches

References Afflerbach, P. (2007). Understanding and using reading

assessment, K–12. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Analyzing and Selecting Text.[Webcast]. Learning experiences.

Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Getting to Know Your Students. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c).Interactive Perspective: Strategic Processing. [Webcast]. Learning

experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author. 

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010d). Perspectives on Early Literacy. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010e).Response Perspective. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010f). The Beginning Reader. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Molden, K. (2007). Critical literacy, the right answer for the reading classroom: Strategies to move beyond comprehension for reading improvement. Reading Improvement, 44(1), 50–56.Use the Education Research Complete database, and search using the article’s Accession Number: 24954486.

Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.