This document outlines literacy lessons for emergent and beginning readers focused on polar bears. It discusses getting to know literacy learners through assessments, characteristics of emergent and beginning readers, selecting informational texts about polar bears including fiction and nonfiction, and sample lesson plans. The emergent reader lesson involves guided reading, sight words, and drawing a fact from a text. The beginning reader lesson focuses on labeling facts versus opinions, recalling information through think-pair-share, and writing two facts using invented spelling.

1. EFFECTIVE LITERACY
ENVIRONMENT FOR PREK-3
LEARNERS
Uniesa Wilkerson
Walden University
Dr. Gina Pink
READ 6706

2. GETTING TO KNOW YOUR LITERACY
LEARNER
 Get to know the whole child; learn their identity-Dr. Janice Almasi (Laureate Education, 2014j)
 Use of research-based assessments
 Cognitive- Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and Text Reading Comprehension
(TRC)
 Non-cognitive-”My Feelings About Reading” by Mariotti (n.d.)
 If a teacher focuses only on cognitive outcomes, it can potentially hurt a student’s progress in literacy
 Successful student readers:
 motivated
 have a positive attitude,
 have a good self-concept
 can assess their performance
Afflerbach, P. (2012). Understanding and using reading assessment: K–12 (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading
Association.
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014j). Getting to know your students [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Mariotti, A. P. (n. d.). Using interest inventories with struggling and unmotivated readers. Retrieved
from http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415802093/news-updates/Interest-Inventories.pdf

3. EMERGENT READER CHARACTERISTICS
 Beginning the journey of acquiring literacy skills
 Making sense of their world
 Phonemic Awareness is critical (Rog, 2007)
 Encourage students to converse and talk to build vocabulary
 Students learn a lot from read alouds
 Mostly writes in scribbles or strings of letters
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014b). Assessing word knowledge [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

4. BEGINNING READER CHARACTERISTICS
 Reads aloud
 Points to words as they read
 They can decode CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words
 Knows some high-frequency words
 Can write 2-3 sentences
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014c). The beginning reader [Video file]. Baltimore, MD:
Author.

5. SELECTING TEXTS
Polar Bears
By Mrs. Wilkerson
The Big Picture
(Laureate Education (Producer). (2014a). Analyzing and selecting texts [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

6. SELECTING TEXT
EARLY LITERACY TEACHERS OFTEN NEGLECT INFORMATIONAL TEXT (LAUREATE
EDUCATION, INC., 2014L)
 Whole Group
 “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do You Hear?” by Bill Martin, Jr.
 Discussion of animals in text and illustrations
 “Polar Bear, Arctic Hare” by Eileen Spinelli
 Discussion of rhyming words; realistic fiction; recalling of facts related to polar bears
 Small Group
 Emergent Reader-“Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do You Hear?” by Bill Martin, Jr. and Polar Bear by Mrs. Wilkerson
 Beginning Reader- “National Geographic Readers: Polar Bears” by Susan Marsh and “A Baby Polar Bear Grows Up” by
readworks.org
 Centers
 Digital Print-“Polar Bears: Animal Safari” by Kari Schuetz via https://www.getepic.com/app/search; “Polar Bear, Polar Bear,
What do You Hear?” via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctQjLfMKinU
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014l). Informational text
in the early years [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

7. EMERGENT READER LESSON
 Objectives
 Students will listen to fiction read alouds and answer questions about the text.
 Students will listen to nonfiction text and recall information from text.
 Students will read easy nonfiction text with common sight words, independently, while pointing to the words as they read.
 Students will draw, write and/or dictate a fact from an informational text.
 Intro
 Students listen to “Polar Bear, Polar Bear What do You Hear?” and answer questions about the text
 Students create identify and match things that begin with “p” using visual pictures
 Instruction and Skills
 Introduction of story sight words for nonfiction text “Polar Bears” by Mrs. Wilkerson
 Guided reading of nonfiction text “Polar Bears” using witch pointer fingers
 Closure
 Students independently read “Polar Bears”
 Students draw one fact about polar bears.
Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B., Jr. (2016). Strategies for reading assessment and instruction: Helping every child succeed (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012b). English language arts standards: Reading: Foundational skills: Kindergarten. Retrieved
from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/K
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012c). English language arts standards: Writing: Kindergarten. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-
Literacy/W/K/

8. BEGINNING READER LESSON
 Objectives
 Students will listen to fiction read alouds and answer questions about the text.
 Students will listen to nonfiction text and recall information from text.
 Students will read easy nonfiction text with common sight words, independently, while pointing to the words as they
read.
 Students will draw, write and/or dictate two facts from an informational text.
 Intro
 Students listen to “National Geographic Readers: Polar Bears” and discuss different facts about polar bears
 Teacher and students discuss fact versus opinion of polar bears
 Instruction and Skills
 Students label fact and opinion t-chart with picture/sentence cards
 Closure
 Students do a think-pair-share about what they know about polar bears to recall information from the week. Students
will write two facts they know about polar bears. They will use invented spelling, sight words, and punctuation (capital
letter and period)
 Enrichment
 Students read advanced text “A Baby Polar Bear Grows Up” from www.readworks.org. Students highlight “hard” words.
Teacher reads through the passage skipping the common “hard” words by saying “blank”, asking students what is a
good word that may fit that has the same beginning sound.
 Students and teacher answer comprehension questions
Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B., Jr. (2016). Strategies for reading assessment and instruction: Helping every child succeed (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012b). English language arts standards: Reading: Foundational skills: Kindergarten. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-
Literacy/RF/K
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012c). English language arts standards: Writing: Kindergarten. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/K/