Experience and Analysis Presentation

1. Literate Environment Analysis Presentation
By Christina Dozier
Walden University
The Beginning Reader EDUC 6706
Instructor: Dr. Martha Moore
February 19, 2015
An analysis of my experience of
creating a literate environment for
my students.

2. Student Motivation
It is important to get to know your literacy
learners in order to give them motivation to
read.
If students are motivated to read, they will
spend more time reading for pleasure which
gives them more opportunities to be fluent
readers.

3. Factors that influence motivation of students.
1. Expectations: Students need to know that their teacher believe in them,
and teachers need to take a personal interest in learning about each
individual student.
2. Collaboration: Students need to be given the opportunities to work with
other students in order to learn more and be more engaged in reading.
3. Reading and Writing Competence: If students are poor readers they will
not want to read and will not be motivated to read.
4. Choices: Allowing students to have choices over what is read will give
them ownership of their accomplishments.
Adapted from Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A
balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

4. Getting to know Literacy Learners
Teachers must find out what students like in life and want to learn
more about in order to motivate the students to read. This is
especially important for struggling readers. Teachers are rushed to
teach the curriculum and often times miss this important step in
literacy (Laureate, n.d.a). Teachers can learn about what their students
like in a variety of ways that are both cognitive and noncognitive.
Examples of getting to know your student
1. A bag from home with small objects that represent the student
individually. The purpose of this is to find out what each students
likes and find text that will motivate the students to read
(Laureate, n.d.a.).
2. Reading Inventories can be used to learn more about each student
(Laureate, n.d.b.). These will give teachers insight in to what the
students like or dislikes. Reading inventories can also be used to
determine what deficiency of each student.

5. How has learning about each literacy
learner helped me as an educator?
I used interest inventories on several students to learn about
each student individually. One specific student was a struggling
read and did not have any motivation to read. Once I found out
that this student liked jokes and humor, I was able to find a book
that was perfect for her and this gave her a purpose for reading.
She then had the purpose for reading and with spending more
time reading what she wants, she would become a more fluent
reader. Fluency is important because students can focus on
thinking about what they are reader instead of trying to decode
words as they read (National Reading Panel, n.d.).

6. Importance of Selecting Appropriate
Text for Readers
“Because most information students are expected to learn comes
from textbooks, using expository text structures correctly becomes
increasingly important” (Camp, 2000, p. 402).
Students need to be exposed to many types of text throughout
their learning trajectory to insure they know how to read and
comprehend what is being read. Expository text are organized
much differently than narrative text and teachers need to make
sure they are giving the students the tools to understand all types
of text.

7. How can teachers make sure they are
selecting the right text for their
students?
Dr. Douglas Hartman (Laureate, n.d.c) suggest using a literacy a quadrant
when selecting a text for students. On the horizontal line you would find
narrative text at one end and informational on the other. On the vertical line
that crosses the horizontal line you would fine linguistic and one end and
semiotic at the other end. When choosing a text, a teacher could use this
literacy quadrant to make sure students are being exposed to a wide range of
texts.
Using the literacy quadrant (Laureate, n.d.c) was very helpful for me when I
was planning lessons for my students. By using this I am making sure that I
am choosing books that fall in all quadrants so my students can see a variety
of texts.

8. Interactive Perspective of Literacy
What is the Interactive Perspective? The interactive perspective
is the tool that teaches students how to read and to strategically
think about what they are reading (Laureate, n.d.d). Basically,
students are being metacognitive about what they are reading.
Through the interactive perspective they will be using the
essentials components of literacy through the interactive
perspective.
1. Phonemic Awareness
2. Word Identification
3. Fluency
4. Vocabulary
5. Comprehension

9. How did using the Interactive
Perspective help me as an educator?
Being knowledgeable about all components of
the reading process and using the interactive
perspective to think about what my students
know about each components was beneficial to
me an educator. I used assessments to see what
skills my students were lacking and planned
lessons based on these skills. As I was teaching
the lesson, I made sure I modeled strategies to
help my students think about what they are
reading.

10. Critical Perspectives
Dr. Janice Almasi (Laureate, n.d.e.) shares that students need to learn to think critically
about what they are reading in order to make their own judgments about the text.
Thinking critically about things is a life skill that students need to be exposed to in
order to be successful with future text presented in and out of the classroom this
perspective helped me as an educator to realize the importance of making sure I am
selecting a variety of texts that are requiring the students to judge and evaluate as a
reader. When planning lessons for my students, I now question if the text is going to
give my students the opportunities that are needed to cover the lesson content and
the critical perspective.

11. Response Perspective
Dr. Janice Almasi shares that students need to be transformed by what they
are reading in order to change the person (Laureate, n.d.f.). Teachers need to
provide the students with a variety of text that gives the students the
opportunity to be transformed about the way they think about text (Laureate,
n.d.f.)
By offering students a variety of texts that give them the opportunities
needed to evaluate and make judgments about was important to me as an
educator. Before learning about this perspective, I did not spend enough time
to analyze and question texts before planning lessons for my students. Now, I
know when I am planning lessons I need to think if this is the right text that
will transform my students and help them express a personal response to
what they have read.

12. Questions to be answered by
colleague and parent
• What insights did you gain about literacy and
literacy instruction from viewing this
presentation?
• How might the information presented change
your literacy practices and/or your literacy
interactions with students?
• In what ways can I support you in the literacy
development of your students or children? How
might you support me in my work with students
or your children?
• What questions do you have?

13. Camp, D. (2000). It takes two: Teaching with twin texts of fact and fiction. Reading Teacher, 53(5),
400–408.
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.a). Getting to know your students. [Video file]. Retrieved
from https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.b) Reading inventories. [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.c). Analyzing and selecting text [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.d.). Interactive perspective: Strategic processing. [Video file].
Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.e.). Critical perspective. [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.f.). Response perspective. [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu
National Reading Panel. (n.d.). Put reading first. Retrieved from
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/...rf_k-3/documents/PRFbooklet.pdf - 611K - 2006-03-30
Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn
& Bacon.