Literate Environment

Analysis

By Lisa VanEpps

What is a Literacy Rich Environment?

An environment that includes not only reading, but speaking, and writing learning for all students.

An environment that allows students to think critically and respond to text in a variety of ways.

An environment that offers text from all parts of the literacy matrix.

An environment that ensures all students have an opportunity to learn.

Getting to Know Literacy Learners

Literacy Autobiography (Laureate Education Inc., 2010a)

•We all have our own•How we see ourselves as readers•What has shaped our love or dislike for reading•What literacy means to each individual•How it shapes our future as a reader

Getting to Know Literacy Learners

As an educator this research practice emphasized the importance of knowing our students (Laureate Education Inc. 2010b). Using the following strategies has helped in understanding who my students are and how I can help them add positives to their literacy biographies.

Learn their interest

Find ways to connect with them as individuals

What motivates each student

What are their successes and struggles when it comes to reading

Getting to Know Literacy LearnersAssessment

Observation – Keen eyes, sit beside student, provides time to take notes keeps teacher quiet, how long student can sit and write

Documentation – Students write their autobiography, word knowledge assessments, spelling inventories

Interpretation – functional description of students literacy, independent, instruction or frustration level, stage of reader

(Laureate Education Inc., 2010c)

Selecting TextLiteracy Matrix

This matrix is a great toolto help assure a well rounded array of text to help students learn in a variety of ways. This is especially important for diverse learners. This is a tool that I find very helpful in selecting a large variety of text for my students.

Linguistic (word oriented)

Informational

Semiotic (communicating message through ways other than words, pictures, icons

Narrative

(Laureate Education Inc., 2010d)

Selecting Text Readability Text length Text structure

• informational• descriptive• cause/effective• problem/solution• compare/contrast• poetic structure

Size of print

Learning ways to select text is an important part of creating a literate environment. The matrix lets us see the landscape of text in a big picture. Helps us to connect learning styles and interests in ways that will reach all readers (Laureate Education Inc., 2010d).

This tool helped me select a variety of text for my lesson plan on life cycles for emergent and beginning readers.

Interactive Perspective

Teaching students to be metacognitive about strategy use will help them to be better strategic learners (Laureate Education Inc., 2010d). Students will learn when they can use beginning and ending sounds or is the word is too big they will understand they should use sound chunking. Using this perspective guided me in forming a lesson plan to help early emergent readers to recognize beginning and ending sounds.

pan

fan

hippopotamus

Interactive Perspective continued

Teach students to be reflectiveTeach students to be self regulatingTeach students to make predictionsTeach students to be able to process textTeach students to figure out which strategy to use

The ultimate goal for the interactive perspective is to teach children how to be literate learners who can navigate the textual world independently (Laureate Education Inc., 2010d). This was an important part of the learning process for my students.

Critical and Response PerspectivesReading strengthens writing & Writing strengthens reading

It is important for students to have the time to put their thoughts on paper. Writing allows for a unique interpretation of text.

Journaling (two types) response – great way to build open-ended

interpretation of text. character – write as if you are one of the characters.

Response journaling is the typical type of journal writing, but adding in the character journal is a great way for students to look at the story in a more personal way.

Critical Perspective

The critical perspective teaches students to look at text in more than one way. They learn that they do not only have to look at the main characters, but understand why the author put other characters into the story. Students need to know that a character is always put into the story for a reason.

Teaching students to critically look at a story and understand the authors purpose is a large part in comprehension.

Using this strategy helped me to help my students enjoy a story for more than just the surface, to look deeper into all elements of the story.

(Laureate Education Inc., 2010e)

References:Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008a). Literacy Autobiographies [DVD] https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_gr

oup_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flaunch er%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1957821_1%26url%3D .

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010b). Getting to Know Your Students. [Video webcast]. The Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Retrieved

from  https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher% 3Ftype

%3DCo urse%26id%3D_1957821_1%26url%3D3D.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010c). Assessing Word Knowledge. [Video webcast]. The Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Retrieved from  https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute

%2Fla uncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1957821_1%26url%3D

Laureate Education, Inc., (Producer). (2010). Analyzing and Selecting Texts [DVD]. The Beginning Reader, Prek-3. Baltimore: Dr. Douglas

Hartman & Dr. Janice Almasi.

References continued:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010e). Critical Perspective [Videowebcast]. The Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Retrieved from:

https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_550324_1%26url%3D Laureate Education Inc. (Producer). (2010d). Response Perspective [Video Webcast]. I n The Beginning Reader Pre-K-3. Retrieved from: https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1957821_1%26url%3D.