Kim Thayer Gina Pink

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Early Literacy
Environments: A
Digital Story
Kim Thayer
READ 6706: Literacy Development PreK-3
Gina Pink

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Table of Contents
 Getting to Know Literacy Learners
 Emergent Literacy Learners
 Beginning Literacy Learners
 Selecting Texts
 Narrative
 Informational
 Digital
 Emergent Literacy Lesson
 Beginning Literacy Lesson
 Reflection
 References

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Getting to Know Literacy Learners
 As teachers begin to plan lessons for emergent and beginning
literacy learners, it is important that he/she understands the
characteristics of these types of learners. We need to spend
some time getting to know where they are academically and
their personal interests.
 As students enter your classroom year after year, they will all
come on different levels of reading and writing. It is our job as
educators to dig deep into their literacy background in order to
help them be successful.
 We must identify their cognitive and non-cognitive aspects in
order to understand them as a literacy learner (Laureate
Education, 2014j).

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Emergent Literacy Learners
 Students in the emergent literacy stage are learning the
conventions and purposes for print, how to start effectively
communicating through language, and the beginning stages of
reading and writing, such as the alphabet letters and sounds
(Wheater, 2011).
 Emergent literacy learners need to be engaged with daily read
alouds using fiction and non-fiction texts, picture books and need
to be exposed to print rich environments.
 When teachers assess emergent learners they should assess the
following:
 Concepts of Print
 Oral Language Development
 Letter Knowledge
 Listening Comprehension

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Beginning Literacy Learners
 The beginning stage is when students move from learning
about reading and writing to actually doing it. At this point they
need to learn how the system works and must be taught more
explicitly and systematically how individual letters and letter
groupings represent a code (Stages of Literacy Development,
2016).
 When teachers assess beginning literacy learners, they need to
assess the following:
 Letter knowledge
 Phonics and decoding skills
 Fluency

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Selecting Texts
 Elementary students need to be exposed
to a wide range of literature including
narratives, informational and digital texts
(Laureate Education, 2014a).
 When teachers are selecting texts, they
should always use the Literacy Matrix to
ensure that the texts are appropriate for
the students.
 There are four parts to the literacy
matric that teachers should take into
account, narrative, informational,
linguistic meaning there are mainly
words, and semiotic meaning there are
mainly pictures. Dr. Hartman states
that when selecting texts, difficulty
considerations should be made
including readability, text length and
text structure (Laureate Education).

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Selecting Texts
 Research shows early literacy learning creates success in later
grades (Laureate Education, 2014l).
 When students get into the 4th grade, if they are not reading at
the 4th grade level, only 1 and 4 children will achieve getting
there (Laureate Education). This is known as the 4th grade
slump and in order to avoid this, teachers need to focus on
informational texts and teach children how to read them.
 Teachers need to teach how to read an informational text:
 Headings
 Bold words
 Table of Contents
 Glossary

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Emergent Literacy Lesson
 Emergent literacy learners are taking the beginning steps in learning to
read and write. These steps need to be supported by the teacher and
others involved in the students life. Students can be supported through
teacher talk, read alouds, alphabet play, phonological awareness
activities, and integrated content area focuses, your instruction will
scaffold the emergent reading and writing processes.
 Theme & Subject Area: Animals/Literacy & Science
 Standards:
 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.10 With prompting and support, read
informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.10 With prompting and support, read prose and
poetry of appropriate complexity for grade
 S1L1. Students will investigate the characteristics and basic needs of plants
and animals.

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Emergent Literacy Lesson
 Objectives:
 The students will read fiction and non-fiction grade level texts.
 The students will describe different animals and compare them.
 The students will categorize different animals into groups defining their
color, size and how they move.
 Texts:
 Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae
 Sea and Land Animals by Sarah Dawson
 Animals: Black and White by Phyllis Limbacher Tildes
 Activity:
 We compared the animals that were shown and read about in the texts.
After that, we categorized the different animals into groups defining their
color, size and how they move whole group on a chart.
 After we categorized animals, we discussed the differences that we see
saw between all of the animals we read about.

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Beginning Literacy Lesson
 A beginning literacy learner is known to match spoken words to written
texts, they can use beginning, middle and ending sounds to decode
words and they also begin to read orally. There are several steps that
need to occur throughout the beginning literacy stage and it is important
for the teacher and parents to be involved throughout each step to make
this learner a successful reader.
 Theme & Subject Area: Animals/Literacy & Science
 Standards:
 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.10 With prompting and support, read
informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.10 With prompting and support, read prose
and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade
 S1L1. Students will investigate the characteristics and basic needs of
plants and animals.

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Beginning Literacy Lesson
 Objectives:
 The students will listen to a fiction and non-fiction grade level text.
 The students will retell story in sequence.
 The students will recall facts about animals from the texts that they
listened to
 Texts:
 Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae
 Sea and Land Animals by Sarah Dawson
 Animals: Black and White by Phyllis Limbacher Tildes
 Activity:
 Students were completing a KWL chart before, during and after reading about
animals.
 After the narrative text, students sequenced events from the text.
 After the non-fiction texts, students recalled facts about what they read.

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Reflection
 Overall I believe my lessons went very well. I was able to get to
know my learners through different inventories and then proceed to
create my lessons based on their responses. My students were
engaged throughout the lessons and were interactive during
activities that we did.
 I know that all beginning and emergent learners learn at different
paces and go through different stages but both types of learners
should always be exposed to a wide range of texts including
narrative and informational texts while aligning with the Literacy
Matrix.
 As an educator I have to be open to the many students that will
come into my classroom and be prepared to meet them at whatever
stage they are in and work hard to help them be a successful
literacy learner.

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References
 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.
 Laureate Education (Producer). (2014l). Informational text in the early
years [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Stages of Literacy Development. (2016). Retrieved March 18, 2016,
from
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/balancedliteracydiet
Stages_of_Literacy_Development.html
 Wheater, J. (2011). Strategies to Assist Emergent Literacy Learners in
Acquiring Alphabetic Knowledge, Print Awareness, and
Phonological Awareness Skills. Retrieved March 10, 2016, from
http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=education
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