The document discusses getting to know literacy learners through various assessments. It describes using cognitive assessments like reading inventories and DIBELS to understand students' reading growth and challenges. Non-cognitive assessments like the ERAS help teachers understand students' motivation and attitudes towards reading. The document also discusses selecting texts for beginning readers based on their interests, and creating literacy lessons focusing on comprehension using K-W-L charts and question-answer relationships.

1. Literate Environment Analysis By: Emilie Ritter Walden University EDUC 6706: The Beginning Reader, PreK-3 Instructor: Dr. Denise Love

2. Getting to Know Literacy Learners The design of an effective literacy classroom is one based on fidelity to the literacy program as well as fidelity to students (Laureate Education Inc., 2010b). In order to create a literate environment, teachers must get to know the children in their classrooms. Children learn in terms of the culture and language background they come from (Laureate Education Inc., 2010f). Teachers can begin to understand more about their students through interacting with families, talking to students, and interest inventories.

3. Getting to Know Literacy Learners (continued) “ Students in our classrooms possess a complex array of reading skills and strategies” (Afflerbach, p. 27). Understanding literacy learners includes the use of cognitive and noncognitive assessments. Examples of Cognitive Assessments Reading Inventories Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills test (DIBELS) Michigan Literacy Progress Profile (MLPP) Cognitive assessments provide teachers with the ability to understand each student’s growth and challenges as a reader (Afflerbach, 2007).

4. Getting to Know Literacy Learners (continued) Noncognitive assessments focus on the student’s motivation to read, self-concept, attitudes about reading, and how they feel about themselves as a reader (Afflerbach, 2007). Motivation is the force behind almost everything we do. Teachers must get to know their students better in order to have their best interests at heart (Laureate Education Inc., 2010d). Examples of Noncognitive Assessments Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey (ERAS; McKenna & Kear, 1990) Classroom observations Interviews with students

5. Getting to Know Literacy Learners – Analysis Literacy begins during infancy and continues well into adulthood (Tompkins, 2010). During my time in the classroom, I have worked with children from all different backgrounds and ability levels. For many of my students, kindergarten is their first real school experience. Getting to know my students is an important part of providing successful literacy experiences for every child. Working with three beginning readers, I was able to look more closely at each child’s strengths and weaknesses with reading. The cognitive assessments I used consisted of DIBELS test scores and tests from the Michigan Literacy Progress Profile (MLPP) that focused on rhyming, segmenting, blending, letter recognition, and letter sound recognition. Through the use of these assessments I was able to design lessons that focused on common challenges among the group. These lessons reinforced concepts like decoding, comprehension, and writing.

6. Literacy Learners – Analysis (continued) Noncognitive aspects of literacy development were measured using the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey (ERAS), classroom observations, and interviews with all three students (McKenna & Kear, 1990). Using these assessment tools, I was able to gain a better understanding of what my students thought about reading. The ERAS demonstrated that each beginning reader enjoyed receiving books as gifts. Moreover, each student chose reading as an activity during choice time. Dr. Almasi (2010d), states that teachers need to take the time to get to know who each student is as a person. One way that this can be done is by simply talking to students about their lives and what they like to do. Interviewing my beginning readers provided me with valuable insight into what they liked to read about. All three students had a love of animals and were very interested in reading about wildlife. This information helped me choose texts that were going to be meaningful and enjoyable for these beginning readers.

7. Selecting Texts The Literacy Matrix Dr. Hartman (2010a) The literacy matrix is a useful tool for thoughtfully analyzing and selecting texts (Laureate Education Inc., 2010a). From printed books to digital media, all forms of text have a place in the literacy classroom. Locating books within the literacy matrix can help students reach their reading goals (Laureate Education Inc., 2010a). When analyzing text from different dimensions, difficulty must also be considered (Laureate Education Inc, 2010a). Some things to think about are: Length of text Size of print Number of sentences Text structure; is it informational or narrative? Informational Linguistic (words) Semiotic (pictures) Narrative

8. Selecting Texts (continued) Texts chosen for beginning readers Animals Go Home, by Patricia Brennan What a Cat Can Do , by Ellen Catala Animals in Winter online text from www.kizclub.com Humpback Whales , by Susan Watson Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, by Bernard Waber Supplemental Literature Bear Snores On , by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman

9. Selecting Texts -Analysis Children who are motivated to read create opportunities to interact with text and choose to read for a variety of reasons (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni, 1996). After assessing noncognitive aspects of literacy, I learned that all three students showed an interest in animals. They all had pets at home and talked about how they enjoyed learning about animals during our science unit on living things. Using this information, I was able to find texts that were interesting to this group of students and fit into the mandated literacy curriculum as well. All three beginning readers demonstrated proficiency with rhyming, phoneme segmentation, and blending. They also had a solid grasp of letters and letter sounds. To help aid with comprehension and decoding skills, I chose simple informational texts to use during guided reading groups. According to Dr. Morrow (2010e) teachers can predict how well children will read in high school based on their reading abilities in kindergarten. For this reason, I chose to incorporate both narrative and informational texts while working with my beginning readers. The difficulty of the texts was a little higher than what these students were used to. As a result, it encouraged them to use decoding and comprehension strategies to understand the text.

10. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective The goal of the interactive perspective is to help students become strategic readers and writers (Laureate Education Inc., 2010i). As educators, it is important to teach students how to use the appropriate strategies for different literacy goals. For example, narrative and informational texts are approached differently. The text structure is different and informational texts do not have characters, settings, or plots. Even though teaching concepts of print and phonemic awareness is crucial for success with reading, students must also have opportunities to navigate different texts (Laureate Education Inc., 2010i).

11. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective (continued) Activities to reinforce the interactive perspective: Word Walls Word Sorts K-W-L Charts Grand Conversations The lesson I created for the interactive perspective focused on comprehension of informational text. In this lesson, students read a book about Humpback whales. Working together, my beginning readers and I created a K-W-L chart of everything we already knew about whales. This chart was useful because it provided students with a reference as they read the text. They were also able to determine if certain information needed to be excluded from or added to the K-W-L chart. Moreover, this lesson focused on the use of context clues. As students read the text, they applied this strategy by looking at surrounding words and illustrations that helped them decode unfamiliar text.

12. Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response Perspectives According to Dr. Almasi (2010c), looking at text and examining it from different perspectives can allow students to look at the believability of what they read. When students use the critical perspective, they are required to think about who wrote the text and what the author’s background is like. They may also think about why characters are important to a story. Most of all, the critical perspective encourages students to think about their own backgrounds and how the text influences their own perspectives. The “Transaction Theory” describes the reader and the text as balls of clay. When the reader and the text come in contact, their path changes, but there is always a dent left where the two collided (Laureate Education Inc., 2010g). Providing opportunities for students to respond to text and interact with texts in meaningful ways is vital to creating a literate environment.

13. Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response Perspectives (continued) Activities to reinforce the critical and response perspectives: Open-mind portraits Question-Answer-Relationships (QAR) Questioning the Author Response Journals The critical and response perspective lesson plan reinforced the concept of text-to-self and text-to-text connections as well as asking questions about events in the text. For this lesson, I chose to use the story Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, by Bernard Waber. During guided reading groups, I worked on the question-answer-relationship (QAR) strategy with my three beginning readers. In the story, Lyle the Crocodile is sent to a zoo by Mr. Grumps. After escaping from the zoo, Lyle the Crocodile saved Mr. Grumps from a house fire. This activity required students to record their thoughts and feelings about these two major events in the story. Students were encouraged to write at least one sentence and a corresponding illustration as a response to the questions. Reading and writing help people understand what they do not know (Laureate Education Inc., 2010h). Reading response journals helped make this story more meaningful to these students.

14. Feedback from Colleagues and Family Members of Students What insights did you gain about literacy instruction from viewing this presentation? How might the information presented change your literacy practices and/or your literacy interactions with students? In what ways can I support you in the literacy development of your students or children? How might you support me in my work with students or your children? What questions do you have?

15. References Afflerbach, P. (2007). Understanding and using reading assessment, K–12. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, Inc. Gambrell, L. B., Palmer, B. M., Codling, R. M., & Mazzoni, S. A. (1996). Assessing motivation to read. The Reading Teacher, 49 (7), 518–533. Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010a). Analyzing and Selecting Text [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Changes in Literacy Education. [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c). Critical Perspective. [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education Inc. (2010d). Getting to know your students. [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3 . Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010e). Informational Text in the Early Years [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010f). Perspectives on Literacy. [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010g). Response Perspective. [Webcast] The beginning reader, prek-3 . Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010h). Response Perspective: Reading-Writing Connection. [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3 . Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010i). Strategic Processing. [Webcast]. The beginning reader, prek-3 . Baltimore, MD: Author. McKenna, M. C., & Kear, D. J. (1990). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new tool for teachers. The Reading Teacher, 43 (9), 626–639. Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.