This presentation summarizes Amy Walker's literacy lesson for early readers. It describes assessments of students' cognitive and non-cognitive literacy development. Walker selected texts based on reading goals, student interests, and a literacy matrix. Lessons incorporated the interactive, critical, and response perspectives. For interactive lessons, students compared fiction and nonfiction, discussed illustrations and author's purpose, and summarized. Critical lessons had students analyze characters and predict unexpectedly. Response lessons had students relate texts to personal experiences and write from different perspectives.

1. Literate Environment
Analysis
Presentation by Amy L. Walker
EDU 6706G: The Beginning Reader
Dr. Martha Moore
Walden University

2. Overview
▪ Getting to Know Literacy Learners, P-3
– Cognitive Assessment
– Non-cognitive Assessment
▪ Selecting Text for My Literacy Learners
– Literacy Matrix
▪ Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
▪ Literacy Lesson: Critical & Response Perspective
▪ Feedback

3. Getting to Know My Literacy
Learners

4. Cognitive Assessment
The cognitive literacy development activity I
chose was text-dependent questioning (Tyner,
2014). I chose questioning because students were
already having a discussion and opportunity
presented itself.
Each student had chosen a passage from one of
their favorite books. I then asked questions about
the passage to check for comprehension.The
questions were not yes or know questions.
Students had to justify their answers with
evidence from the text.
I then had the students to come up with their own
questions for one another. Again, they had to
justify their answers with information gained from
the text.

5. Non-Cognitive Assessment
▪ “Successful student readers are motivated, have a positive
attitude, possess a good self-concept, and are capable of
making accurate attributions for their performances”
(Tompkins, 2010, p.173).
▪ To assess my group non-cognitive literacy development, I
presented them with a reading survey to see where they are
in competence, attitude, and difficulty. The survey was
created based on the Reading Self-Concept Scale (Afflebach,
2012).

6. Non-Cognitive Survey Sample Questions
 Difficulty Subscale
 Do you make lots of mistakes in reading?
 Are the books you read in class too hard?
 Competence Subscale
 Can you work out hard words by yourself
when you read?
 Are you good at remembering words?
 Attitude Subscale
 Do you look forward to reading? Why or
why not?
 What kind of books do you like to read?
 How do you feel about the books read in
class?

7. Selecting Text

8. Selecting Text for My Literacy Learners
▪ When selecting text, I not only focused on our reading goals and
standards, but also the Literacy Matrix presented by Dr. Hartman
(Laureate, 2011) and the interests of my learners.

9. My Analysis
By using a variety of texts, students are given more
opportunity to explore perspectives and interests as
well as understand the concepts being taught,
sometimes on a more critical level.

10. Interactive Perspective
▪ The interactive perspective denotes reading and writing
accurately, fluently, and with comprehension while being
strategic and metacognitive readers and writers (Laureate
Education, 2014).
▪ The primary goal of the interactive perspective is to teach
children how to be literate learners capable of independently
navigating through the textual world (Laureate Education,
2010d).

11. Tools for strengthening the interactive
perspective include:
 Discussion
 Learning Logs
 Word Walls
 Interactive Reading Logs
 K-W-L Charts

12. Interactive Perspective
The Lesson Analysis
Analysis
This perspective resonated most in our reading of Ona, Cloud Rider by Stuart Baum and Clouds from
weatherwizkids.com (Weather Wiz Kids, 2014). Our focus was book genres, namely fiction and
nonfiction. I chose these stories because my students have recently learned about clouds and they
can relate to and differentiate the content based on prior knowledge—schema. The activities in this
lesson include:
 Comparing and Contrasting Fiction and Nonfiction Book Genres Using a Venn Diagram
 Class Discussion & Collaboration
 Identifying the Impact of Illustrations
 Identifying Author’s Purpose
 Summarizing
 Writing

13. Interactive Perspective
The Lesson Analysis Cont…
Students were able to relate to the text.
Students were engaged throughout the story and lesson.
Students comprehended what they read.
Students were thinking strategically and utilizing
comprehension skills while reading.

14. Critical & Response Perspectives
▪ Critical Perspective
▪ The critical perspective denotes judging, evaluating, and
thinking critically about text (Laureate, 2014).
▪ Response Perspective
 The response perspective denotes reading, reacting, and
responding to text in a variety of meaningful ways
(Laureate, 2014).

15. Critical & Response Perspective
Lesson Analysis
The critical and response perspectives resonated most in our reading of First Day
Jitters by Julie Danneberg.
The goal of our lesson was to describe characters in a story and explain how their
actions contributed to the sequence of events; however, this book provided other
great learning opportunities as well with its surprise ending and perfect openings
for making predictions.
From the critical perspective, students were analyzing the character and the
moments leading up to the surprise ending. After we read the story, the students
were evaluating their own thinking and questioning how the story unfolded in that
way.
From the response perspective, students related to first day jitters. They shared
their own feelings of anxiousness on the first day as well as their awareness of
others’ feelings, especially those new to school.

16. Critical & Response Perspective
Lesson Analysis Cont…
Both perspectives continued throughout the lesson in our
writing. The writing activity provided learners with two
options:
1. Create a comic strip depicting your first day of school
experience.
2. Write a journal entry from Sarah’s or a student’s point-of-
view about the first day of school.

17. Feedback
▪ 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?

18. References
 Afflerbach, P. (2012). Understanding and Using Reading Assessment K-12 (2nd ed.).
Newark, DE: International Reading Association
 Baum, S. (2014). Ona, Cloud Rider. Retrieved from
http://www.stuartstories.com/stories/ona.html
 Danneberg, J. (2000). First Day Jitters. Digital Format. Retrieved from
http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/book.asp?id=2594
 Laureate Education. (2011). Analyzing and Selecting Text [Webcast]. The Beginning
Reader PreK-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Laureate Education. (n.d.). Framework for Literacy Instruction. Retrieved from
https://www.class.waldenu.edu
 Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach (5th ed).
Boston: Allyn Bacon
 Tyner, B. (2014) Reading Seminar & RTI Training. May 25, 2014. Sequoyah High
School: Madisonville, Tennessee.
 Walden University. (2014). Lesson Plan Template. Retrieved from
https://www.waldenu.edu