Early Literacy Environments: A Digital Story and Reflection

1. LITERATE ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS
PRESENTATION
Reading-6706
Literacy Development PreK-3
Stephine Lewis

2. PART I: GETTING TO KNOW EMERGENT
AND BEGINNING LITERACY LEARNERS
PREK-3
The Five Pillars
•Phonemic Awareness
•Phonics
•Fluency
•Vocabulary
•Comprehension
• (Ruetzel & Cooter, 2016p. 10)

3. Cognitive Factors of Literacy
Language Comprehension
• Background
Knowledge
• Linguistic
Knowledge
• Phonology
• Syntax
• Semantic
Decoding
• Letter Knowledge
• Alphabetic Principle
• Concepts about Print
• Phonemic Awareness
• Cypher Knowledge
• Lexical Knowledge
(Wren et al, 2013)

4. Noncognitive
• Motivation
• Self-Concept
• Attitude
• Interest
• Attributions
(Afflebach, 2012)

5. Foundational Skills
• Print Concept
• Fluency
• Phonics Spelling
• Word Recognition
• Phonemic Awareness
(Ruetzel & Cooter, 2016 p. 21)

6. PART II: SELECTING TEXT
MATRIX
Linguistic
Informational
Semiotic
Narrative
(Laureate Education,
2014a)

7. Informative
Digital
Narrative
Kimberly Edgerton
Wendy Cheyette Lewison
Natasha Wing
Informative

8. Text Selection
Dr. Janice Almare (2014 a) states that some of the things to consider
when selecting text is readability, text length, text structure, size of
print, and visual support.
Dr. Douglas Hartman (2014 a) states that it is important to expose
children to all types of text such as narrative, informational, semionic
and Linguistic.
Ruetzel & Cooter (2016) emphasize the importance of selecting a
variety of interesting and appropriately challenging reading and writing
materials.

9. Part III Emergent Literacy Learner Lesson
• Will introduce the students to the book F is for Flag as F is the letter of the week
• Then I will go over a few words in the text that may be unfamiliar to the students
• We will do a picture walk through the book and record the students predictions
• I will then read the story also known as a shared reading experience
• Once we complete the story, I will review the predictions noted for comprehension
• The students will then participate in a writing activity by decorating a flag
• Next the students will either write or draw one thing that they liked or remembered about the story
• Finally as an oral language opportunity, the students will share their picture and explain what they drew with the
class

10. Instructional Strategies for the Emergent
Literacy Learner
• Picture Walk- This is a strategy that is used to introduce
young children to a book where time is spent discussion the
pictures observed prior to reading the book. This technique
helps young children with comprehension (Ruetzel & Cooter,
2016)
• Read Aloud or Shared Reading Strategy- This strategy is the
practice of sharing a book with the students where the
teacher can model the reading process and point out print
concepts (Ruetzel & Cooter, 2016)

11. Emergent Literacy Environment
• Large books/print
• Music
• Reading area for group reading
• Areas for role playing
• Print rich environment
• Alphabet Displayed
• Labels on objects in the classroom
(Laureate Education, 2014f)

12. Part IV Beginning Reading Literacy Learner
• Prior to reading the book The Night Before the Fourth of July, I will ask the students some open-ended
questions pertaining to our Nations Independence and the traditions that are built around that holiday
• As a class we will do a picture walk, as this book is a narrative, I want to see if the children can identify some
of the traditions. I will note some of the things they identify after we read they story
• I will add some words or text from the book to our class word wall.
• We will then have a shared reading experience as I read the book to the class
• Once we complete the story, I will pair them with a partner to discuss some of the traditions they recalled
hearing in the story. We will then share them and compare the traditions to the one’s that we noted prior to
reading the story
• The students will then do a writing assignment, by drawing and then writing one to two sentences
describing their favorite 4th of July tradition.

13. Instructional Strategies for the Beginning
Literacy Learner
• Question Generation/Elaborative Interrogation-This strategy is used
to encourage students to use their own personal knowledge and
experience to create some “why” questions and then find
information in the book to link the statement to the question (Ruetzel
& Cooter, 2016 p.394)
• Think-Pair-Share: Readers Collaborate to Comprehend- This strategy
gives students the opportunity to share their ideas and feelings about
a text with either another student or a group of students (Ruetzel &
Cooter, 2016 P. 381

14. Beginning Literacy Learner Environment
• Reading Centers with a variety of books for students to read
independently or with a partner
• Word Walls with high frequency words that the students are
becoming familiar with and starting to identify in print
• Print Rich Environment/Objects Labeled
• Vocabulary words displayed
• Writing Centers for practicing writing sentences and/or short stories
(Laureate Education, 2014c)

15. REFLECTION
Through this process I have learned more about emergent and beginning
literacy learners and the type of environments these learners need to
become active readers. I became more aware of the cognitive and
nonconitive factors of literacy and how each one is relevant to a child’s
ability to read. Some of the instructional strategies that really help both
of these types of literacy learners are shared reading, picture walks,
question generation/interrogation, and think-pair-share. For both the
emergent and beginning literacy learner it’s important to know how to
select a variety of text that is challenging. The matrix tool is a great tool
to help in the selection of such text. When selecting text, it is important
to consider length, structure, size of print and the visual supports as
both the emergent and beginning literacy learner are acquiring the skill
of to looking at pictures and other visual aids to gain information about
text. I know that the lesson plans I create, taking all of these tools,
strategies, and information into consideration, will help my students to
progress in their literacy development.

16. References
Afflebach, P. (2012). Understanding and using reading assessment: k-12. (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International
Reading Association
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014 a). Analyzing and selecting text [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: author
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014c).The beginning reader [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: authors
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014 f). Classroom demonstration: Emergent literacy [Video file]. Baltimore,
MD: author
Ruetzel, D. R. & Cooter, R. B. (2016). Strategies for reading assessment and instruction. Helping every child
succeed (5th ed.). Boston, MA: pearson
Wren, S., Litke, B., Jinkins, D., Paynter, S., Watts, J. & Alanis, I. (2013). Cognitive elements of reading in Cognitive
Foundations of Learning to Read: A framework. Retrieved from http://
www.sedl.org/reading/framework/elements.html (Initial page only)