Week7Discussion

1. Creating a Literate Environment
By: Natalie Griffin
READ-6706

2. W H A T I S A L I T E R A T E E N V I R O N M E N T ?
C R E A T I N G A L I T E R A T E E N V I R O N M E N T
G E T T I N G T O K N O W T H E E M E R G E N T
R E A D E R
G E T T I N G T O K N O W T H E B E G I N N I N G
R E A D E R
S E L E C T I N G T E X T S
R E F E R E N C E S
Key Components

3. What is a Literate
Environment?
As stated by (Lipton, 2008, p. 11 ) “The most
important part of creating a literate
environment is establishing a well organized,
stimulating, comfortable, inviting classroom.”
Moreover, immersing students in print, allowing
access to all text types and covering the
classroom in words of all forms promotes
literacy growth. The literacy rich environment
emphasizes the importance of speaking,
reading, and writing in the development of all
students (WETA, 2015).

4. Creating a Literate Environment
Teachers can use The Framework for Literacy Instruction to
promote a literate environment. The following elements
should be considered:
The Learner
 affective and cognitive aspects of learning
Texts
 The text type, genre, and difficulty should be matched
to the learner
Instructional Practices
 Teachers should work to use developmentally
appropriate research based practices
Literacy Perspectives ( Interactive, Critical, and Response)

5. Creating a Literate Environment Cont.
The Framework for Literacy Instruction

6.  Using a wide variety of
assessments with readers
allows teachers to gain
insight into the areas of
strength and growth that
their students bring to the
classroom. Analyzing the
five pillars of literacy and
using both cognitive and
noncognitve assessments
are good ways to
accomplish this goal.
Getting to Know the Beginning and Emergent
Reader

7. Cogntive Noncognitive
 With my emergent reader I
administered three cognitive
assessments in the areas of concepts
of print, phonemic awareness, and
listening comprehension.
 Mow-Motorcycle Assessment: Used
to assess students awareness of how
length of spoken words related to the
length of printed words.
 Oddity Task: Used to measure
children’s development of onset and
rime awareness vs. phonemic
awareness.
 Story Retelling guide: Student retell
what they recall from a story using
the Retell Evaluation Guide (Reutzel
& Cooter, 2014, p. 71)
 Student Reading
Interest Survery
(Reutzel & Cooter,
2014, p. 348).
Getting to Know the Emergent Reader:
Assessment

8. Cognitive Noncognitive
Fluency:
 I used The Dynamic Indicators of
Basic Early Literacy Skills
assessment with my beginning
reader
Comprehension:
 Oral retell using Reutzel & Cooter’s
Oral Retelling form.
“One of the most effective ways to
find out if a child understands
informational text it to use an oral
retelling, or a free recall of the text”
Reutzel & Cooter (2014, p. 353)
 The Motivation for Reading
Questionnaire (Reutzel & Cooter,
2014, p. 345). This assessment
provides teachers with information
about students’ interests and
motivations
Assessing the Beginning Reader

9. Selecting Texts
The literacy matrix is a tool
that educators can use when
selecting texts to use with
their readers (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2014a).
Texts are analyzed on the
basis of informational or
narrative. They are then
critiqued as to whether they
are linguistic (word driven)
or semiotic (picture driven).
Linguistic
Narrative Informational
Semiotic

10. An additional dimension
 Next, teachers can examine
text difficulty by looking
closely at readability, the
length of the text, print
size, visuals, and structure.
Using the matrix informs
decision making by looking
at the needs and interests
of students. Furthermore,
it allows teachers to use a
wide variety of texts
throughout their
classroom.
Hard
Easy
Selecting Texts Continued

11. Emergent Reader Text Set Beginning Reader Text Set
Selecting Texts
Narrative
Narrative
InformationalInformational

12. References
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014a). Analyzing and selecting text
[Video file]. Baltimore, MD: author.
Lipton, L. (2008). More than 100 ways to learner centered literacy. Sage
publications. Retrieved from
https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/
24391_Lipton_Chapter1.pdf
Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B. (2016). Strategies for reading assessment
and instruction: Helping every child succeed (5th ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson.