The document discusses strategies for teaching early literacy skills to students in pre-K through 3rd grade. It covers assessing students' literacy skills, selecting appropriate reading materials, and teaching literacy using interactive, critical, and response perspectives. The goals are to help students become independent readers who can read accurately, fluently and comprehend text, think critically about what they read, and respond to and discuss texts in meaningful ways. Assessments and conferencing are used to identify student needs and guide instruction. A variety of engaging texts at different levels are selected to motivate students and support literacy development.

1. Course Project
EDUC-6706G-4,The Beginning Reader, PreK-3.2013
Summer Sem
Derek Swan

2. I. Getting to Know Literacy Learners, P–3
• Teachers monitor students’ learning everyday and use the
results to make instructional decisions (Tompkins, 2010.) As a
result, it is essential that teachers conduct assessments to
measure overall student knowledge towards literacy.
• Establishing proper assessments is a practice that will help me
create a successful literate environment in my classroom.

3. I. Getting to Know Literacy Learners, P–3 Continued
• Gail Tomkins emphasizes the importance of using conferences
to monitor overall student literacy progress. Establishing goals
with students, working on vocabulary and comprehension
checks provide students with extra individualized instruction.
• Diagnosing students’ strengths and weaknesses allowed me to
locate the needs of my students. Moreover, it allowed me to
gain insights towards what cognitive and metacognitive
strategies I needed to work on to better meet the needs of my
students.

4. II. Selecting Texts
• What readers know and do during reading has a tremendous
impact on how well they comprehend, but comprehension
involves more than just reader factors: It also involves text
features, stories, informational books, and poems can be
easier or more difficult to read depending on factors that are
inherent in them (Tompkins, 2010.)
• Selecting correct Basal Reading Programs will allow me to
implement workbook assignments, independent reading
opportunities and work on strategies and skills that will help
them become better readers.

5. II. Selecting Texts Continued
• Studies show that students’ motivation to learn increases
when they perceive a topic or task to be interesting and
relevant (Marzano, 2010.) Therefore, high interests texts will
be provided to engage students and get them excited to read.
• Selecting quality texts that meet the individual needs of the
students’ will give my students the opportunity to improve in
reading fluency, comprehension and accuracy.
• Getting students motivated on their own is a key fundamental
in regards to reading performance. Motivated students are
more successful (Tompkins, 2010.)

6. II. Selecting Texts Cont.
• Using the balanced literacy approach, my
student’s will be using informational texts to gain
new information and generate personal writing
responses in regards to what they are reading.
• Incorporating informational text in the curriculum
in the early years of school has the potential to
increase student motivation, build important
comprehension skills, and lay the groundwork for
students to grow into confident, purposeful
readers (Duke, 2004.)

7. III. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
• Focusing on teaching the interactive perspective on
literacy learning will help teach my student’s how to read
and write accurately, fluently, and with comprehension.
• Using the interactive perspective will help my student’s
distinguish essential text elements and non-essential text
elements.
• Utilizing the interactive perspective on literacy, students
will provide students with the opportunity to direct their
thinking. Students use both cognitive and metacognitive
strategies to direct their thinking (Tompkins, 2010.)

8. III. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective Continued
• Teaching students to read for meaning and a purpose will
improve their overall literacy development. The goal of
reading is the construction of meaning and an assessment
that allows us to better understand the process by which
student readers construct meaning is valuable
(Afflerbach, 2012.)
• Students becoming independent readers has given students
responsibility and a purpose for reading. Effective strategy
instruction also uses a gradually release of responsibility to
the students (Stahl, 2004.)

9. IV. Literacy Lesson: Critical Perspective
• The Critical Perspective on literacy learning focuses on
teaching students how to judge, evaluate and to think
critically about the text.
• Teaching my students how to evaluate the text, one their
own, will allow them to think critically about the text that
they are reading.
• In class, students will have the opportunity to find topics
that matter to them and develop a personal opinion
regarding their beliefs.

10. IV. Literacy Lesson: Critical Perspective Continued
• Students will have the opportunity to make connections
to what they are reading.
• Many researchers identify making connections is a
strategy necessary for learning meaning construction
(Clyde, 2003.)
• Students will learn about ideas that matter to them and
be engaged in learning more about those issues.
• Engaged students have self-efficacy, the belief in their
capability to succeed and reach their goals
(Tompkins, 2008.)

11. IV. Literacy Lesson: Response Perspective
• Teaching the Response Perspective on literacy learning will
help my students learn how to react and to respond to the
text in a variety of meaningful ways.
• By encouraging and allowing students to discuss and develop
their own interpretations of text, they learn to appreciate the
power of literature and how the messages contained in books
relate to their daily lives; students not only become active
readers of the text, they are motivated to find value in the
meaning of the text (Durand, Howell, Schumacher & Sutton,
2008.)

12. IV. Literacy Lesson: Response Perspective Continued
• Within the Response Perspective, my students will have the
opportunity to work in groups and have meaningful discussions.
• Research on social context has established the importance of
socializing students to function as a collegial learning community in
which they feel that they belong; enjoy a sense of well-being
because their basic needs for autonomy, competence, and
relationships are being met; and focus on pursuing learning goals
rather than seeking to impress or compete with their classmates
(Marzano, 2010.)
• My student’s will learn how to evoke an emotional response to the
text, as well as, formulate verbal responses.

13. References
• Afflerbach, P. (2012). Understanding and using reading assessment, K–12 (2nd ed).
Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
• Clyde, J. A. (2003). Stepping inside the story world: The subtext strategy—a tool for
connecting and comprehending. The Reading Teacher, 57(2), 150–160.
• Duke, N. (2004). The case for informational text. Educational Leadership, 61(6),
40–44.
• Durand, C., Howell, R., Schumacher, L. A., & Sutton, J. (2008). Using interactive
read-alouds and reader response to shape students’ concept of care. Illinois
Reading Council Journal, 36(1), 22–29.
• Marzano, R. (2010). On excellence in teaching. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree
Press.
• Stahl, K. A. D. (2004). Proof, practice, and promise: Comprehension strategy
instruction in the primary grades. Reading Teacher, 57(7), 598–608.
• Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th
ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon

14. Thank You