Walden READ 6706

1. Early Literacy
Environment: A
Digital Story
HALEY REIMERS
READ 6706
INSTRUCTOR: GINA PINK

2. Table of Contents
 Getting to Know Emergent & Beginning Literacy Learners
 Emergent Literacy Learners
 Beginning Literacy Learners
 Text Selection
 Emergent Literacy Lesson
 Beginning Literacy Lesson
 Reflection

3. Getting to Know Emergent &
Beginning Literacy Learners
 Educators must first get to know their learners in a variety of ways. This
includes getting to know their stage of literacy development, student’s
interests, student’s background and student’s attitude toward reading.
 Cognitive and Noncognitive assessments are ways educators get to know
their learners. These can include running records, interest surveys and
reading inventories.
 The better you know your students the better you can connect them with a
text in profound ways (Laureate Education, 2014j).

4. Emergent Literacy Learners
 To get to know an emergent literacy learner an educator should assess the
student’s oral language development, concepts of print, phonemic
awareness, letter knowledge and listening comprehension.
 Emergent literacy learners should be exposed to a print rich environment,
daily read alouds and a variety of picture books. Pictures books should also
include nonfiction texts.
 Emergent readers desire enriching and enjoyable experiences with books,
especially picture books (Pacific Resources For Education and Learning,
2015).

5. Beginning Literacy Learners
 The beginning stage of literacy development means that students move
from learning about reading and writing to actually doing it (Stages of
Literacy Development, 2016).
 To get to know a beginning literacy learner an educator should assess
letter knowledge, phonics and decoding skills and reading fluency.

6. Text Selection
 When selecting texts difficulty considerations should be made. These
include readability, text length and text structure (Laureate Education,
2014a).
 Students need to be exposed to genres that include narratives,
informational and digital texts.
 To avoid the fourth grade slump, educators must focus on informational
texts and teach text structures that include narrative texts and
informational texts (Laureate Education, 2014l).

7. Text Selection continued
 Dr. Hartman provided a matrix for
analyzing and selecting texts
(Laureate Education, 2014a).
 This matrix can be used as a tool for
helping educators select an
appropriate text that meets the
students’ needs.

8. Emergent Literacy Lesson
 Learning how to read and write is a developmental process that goes
through many steps before the skills have been mastered. Emergent
literacy learners are beginning to take the steps necessary for learning how
to read and write.
 Theme: Animals All Around
 Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.10 With prompting and support, read
prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade
 CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.10 With prompting and support, read informational
texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
 S1L1. Students will investigate the characteristics and basic needs of animals.
Compare and describe various animals—appearance, motion, growth, basic
needs.

9. Emergent Literacy Lesson continued
 Objectives: The students will read grade level text. The students will
compare and describe various animals. The students will categorize
animals from the text based on their appearance, motion, growth and
basic needs.
 Activity: Students identified rhyming words and used strategies for reading
unknown words. Students also categorized animals from the informational
text based on their appearance, motion, growth and needs.
 Text selected: Giraffes Can’t Dance, Sea and Land Animals, Animals Black
and White

10. Beginning Literacy Lesson
 When students’ progress through the beginning literacy stage, they begin
to move from learning about reading and writing to actually doing it
(Stages of Literacy Development, 2016).
 Theme: Animals
 Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.10 With prompting and support, read
prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade
 CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.10 With prompting and support, read informational
texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
 S1L1. Students will investigate the characteristics and basic needs of animals.
Compare and describe various animals—appearance, motion, growth, basic
needs.

11. Beginning Literacy Learner continued
 Objectives: The students will listen to the teacher read informational and
narrative texts about animals. The students will sequence events from the
narrative text. The students will identify the text features of an
informational text. The students will also recall facts about how animals
appear, move and look from the informational text. Then the students will
read appropriately leveled informational text independently.
 Activity: Students will sequence the events of narrative story. The students
will also recall facts from an informational text.
 Text selected: Giraffes Can’t Dance, Sea and Land Animals, Animals Black
and White

12. Reflection
 As I reflect back on this experience, I believe I have grown as an educator.
Viewing the classroom demonstrations was very insightful. I enjoyed
catching a glimpse of what different classrooms, at different grades levels
looked like. Both demonstrations provided me with ideas that I can use in
my own first grade classroom.
 Getting to know emergent and beginning learners equipped me with the
knowledge to help learners in my classroom. I feel more confident going
forward and I have learned information and best practices that I can share
with my colleagues.

13. Reference List
 BALANCEDLITERACYDIET :: Stages of Literacy Development :: Balanced
Literacy Diet. (2016). Retrieved March 18, 2016, from
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/balancedliteracydiet/Stages_of_Liter
acy_Development.html
 Laureate Education (Producer). (2014a). Analyzing and selecting texts
[Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author
 Laureate Education (Producer). (2014j). Getting to know your students
[Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Pacific Resources For Education and Learning. (2015). Stages of Reading
Development. Retrieved March 10, 2016, from
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/stages-reading-development