The document discusses key principles for developing literacy in early readers. It emphasizes the importance of understanding students' cognitive and non-cognitive needs through various assessments. The author developed a literacy unit on bats for three transitional readers using texts that addressed their needs. Strategies focused on vocabulary development and comprehension. Students showed growth in these areas, demonstrating the importance of selecting appropriate texts and instructional strategies matched to students' literacy levels and needs.

1. By Kim Sexton
Walden University
EDUC-6706R-4 The Beginning Reader, PreK-3
Dr. Denise Love

2.  A literate environment adapts to new literacies, including
technology.
 The methods used for instruction, must match the target,
or goal, to be achieved by the learner (Laureate Education,
Inc., 2010a).

3.  Teachers must get to know their students and what
motivates them to learn, both on an academic and personal
level.
 It is critical that children are actively engaged in the
process of their own learning (Laureate Education, Inc.,
2010b).

4.  A child’s literacy development is effected by their culture
and language exposure.
 Teachers must respect where a child comes from.
 A teacher must work with the learner to broaden their
worlds to make them more literate (Laureate Education,
Inc., 2010b).
 A child’s literacy is nurtured by interaction with responsive
adults.

5.  Methods of non-cognitive assessment: These assessments allow teachers
to asses a student’s attitudes and motivations in regards to reading. Students
must be motivated, have a good self-concept, and a positive attitude to
become successful readers (Afflerbach, 2007).
 Student observations
 Student interviews
 Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) (McKenna & Kear, 1990) to
assess student’s self-concept of their reading abilities as well as their view of the
academic value of reading.

6.  Methods of cognitive assessment: These assessments help us to understand
how students process and use language to construct meaning when they read
(Afflerbach, 2007).
 Easy CBM: reading fluency, reading comprehension and vocabulary
assessment with appropriate benchmarks for each grade level.
 Miscue analysis: a reading fluency that tracks the number and types of
errors (including hesitations) a student reads when reading aloud.

7.  The use of non-cognitive assessments has allowed me to
focus on the whole child. That is to say, it has caused me
to focus on why it is, exactly, that my students either
struggle or excel at reading. Knowing what motivates
them to read and getting to know them on a more personal
level has allowed me to help them choose appropriate
texts that address both their cognitive and non-cognitive
needs. It has also caused me to focus on the needs of my
students from diverse backgrounds in terms of culture,
language, and vocabulary.

8.  Using both cognitive and non-cognitive assessments, I assessed three
transitional readers, described as mid-second to third grade readers
who are capable of using reading as a tool for learning (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010c). Two of them are English Language Learners
(ELLs). The one girl, who scored the highest of the three on the
ERAS (McKenna & Kear, 1990), has a reasonably strong self-
concept when it comes to reading and sees the academic value
in reading. The lower scoring of the two boys struggles most
with comprehension, but has a high fluency level, which means
he is fairly adept at word-calling, but does not connect with
what he is reading. The third student has low scores in both
areas of reading fluency and comprehension. He struggled so
much with decoding words that it was extremely difficult for
him to comprehend what he was reading.

9.  When selecting texts, it is as important for students to
have some background knowledge on the topic about
which they are reading as it is for them to be active
participants in their literacy learning (Laureate Education,
Inc., 2010b). Students can use background knowledge, or
schema, to help connect with text and create meaning out
of its content (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010d).

10. Matrix for analyzing text
Linguistic
(word oriented)
Narrative Text Informational Text
Semiotic (non-linguistic,
picture-oriented text)
 When selecting texts, it is important to consider which quadrant on this matrix the
book can be placed (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010e)

11.  The difficulty of text must be considered in the following
ways:
 Readability: sentence length, concept difficulty frequency of
word use.
 Length of the text: this effects student motivation to read the
selected text.
 Text structure: informative/descriptive, cause/effect,
problem/resolution, compare/contrast,
 Size of the print in the text
 Visual Support such as charts or graphs and illustrations.
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2010e)

12.  Using this information, I chose a selection of books about
bats to develop a literacy unit for the three transitional
readers I assessed.
 Texts chosen to support this unit
 Stellaluna, written by Janell Cannon, read by actress Pamela
Reed on www.storylineonline.net. This text falls in the
narrative/linguistic quadrant of the matrix.
 The Magic School Bus Going Batty: A Book About Bats, by
Joanna Cole. This text also falls in the narrative/linguistic
quadrant.
 Let’s Look at Bats, written by Ruth Berman. This text falls in
the informational/linguistic quadrant

13.  The use of the matrix for the purpose of selecting texts for
my transitional readers enabled me to select texts that met
both the cognitive and non-cognitive needs of my
transitional readers.
 I chose books that were informational and allowed for
exposure to new vocabulary and opportunities for critical
thinking. Students need early and continued exposure to
informational text in order to begin the development of
background knowledge to build upon (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010f).

14.  I also chose books that were interesting and entertaining to
meet the students’ non-cognitive needs, and would provide
opportunities to access the students’ own schema in order
connect with the text.
 The use of technology, which is considered to be one of
the new literacies (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010a). The
materials we use to expose students to literacy have
changed greatly. The use of technology as a way to access
literacy is a common tool for today’s literacy learners. It is
interactive and engaging, and provides an almost
unlimited supply of learning opportunities for learning.

15.  The Interactive Perspective dictates that literacy learning
must contain aspects of all of the Five Pillars of Literacy
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2010g)
 Alphabetic Principal
 Phonemic Awareness
 Reading Fluency
 Vocabulary
 Comprehension

16.  Strategies: different strategies are used for informational
and narrative text.
 Narrative text: strategies focus on such topics as
character/setting/plot, conflict and resolution, cause and
effect (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010e).
 Informational text: strategies may focus on compare and
contrast, vocabulary development, building of content
knowledge.

17.  Using the previous selection of texts about bats, I
developed a unit for my three, below-level, transitional
readers. As my formal, cognitive assessments dictated,
some of their areas of greatest need were vocabulary and
reading comprehension, so these were the areas of focus
for this literacy unit.
 In consideration of the students’ non-cognitive needs, I
knew that they would find these texts interesting which
would make them more likely to remain actively engaged.

18.  One objective for this small group of students was for
them to be able to use context clues to be able to
determine the meaning of new or unfamiliar vocabulary.
 My second objective was for the students to be able to
answer comprehension questions about the text and be
able to show where in the text they were able to find the
information to correctly answer the questions.

19.  The students were actively engaged in all three texts and
participated willingly throughout the lessons. All three
students showed growth based on pre- and post-
assessments in both areas.
 The true assessment in this unit is ongoing and requires
that students continue to use the skills that they learned
and can transfer the strategies that we used to identify
word meaning and to locate information to their
independent reading.

20.  Dr. Almasi states that the critical perspective includes evaluating text
from multiple perspectives, making judgments about a text and its
believability based upon who wrote it and why. It requires thinking
critically about text (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010h).
 This includes determining the author’s purpose and perspective in
writing at text, whether to inform, persuade, or entertain.
Understanding why the author wrote at text will help a student to
know what his or her purpose in reading a text, whether for
enjoyment or to gain knowledge of content matter.

21.  The response perspective refers to the exposure to text that
affects a student on both emotional and personal levels
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2010i). It also includes the
connection between reading and writing as a way of
having students respond to text.
 Reading and writing reinforce each other’s development.
They help students to make connections to what they are
reading and provides opportunities for constructing new
world knowledge (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010k).

22.  Students can respond to what they read using a number of
tools.
 Response Journals: used to develop an open-ended
interpretation of text as well as helps a student write how he
or she connects to text on a personal level (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010j)
 Double-Entry Journals: journal pages are divided and
sections are used for different purposes, such as identifying
specific portions of text to respond to on one side and their
response on the other. These journals are used for a more
teacher directed response in order to help students structure
their thinking about text (Tompkins, 2010)

23.  I used the my understanding of these two perspectives to
design a literacy unit that required students to determine
the authors purpose in writing a text and to determine the
main idea and lesson or moral to be learned from a text.
Guiding my small group of students through learning how
to use the double entry journal was very effective. It
allowed me to provide specific ideas for them to respond
to on both a personal and critical level.

24.  The implementation of these strategies helped me to
deliver a lesson that addressed multiple perspectives.
Students were able to respond to specific questions that I
asked them and to identify the main idea of the text. They
were also able to personally respond to text and identify
how they related to the main character in Stelalluna, by
Janell Cannon.

25.  Please provide me with feedback in the following areas:
 New insights about literacy and literacy instruction
 How this information changes literacy practices or your
interactions with students
 How I can support you in literacy development of your
students/children?
 Any support you might be able to provide
 Any questions you might have after viewing this
presentation.

26.  Afflerbach, P. (2007). Understanding and using reading assessment, K–12. Newark, DE: International
Reading Association.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Changes in Literacy. [Webcast]. The Beginning
Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Perspectives on Early Literacy. [Webcast].
The Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c). The Beginning Reader. [Webcast]. The Beginning
Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010d).VFE: Strategic Processing. [Webcast]. The
Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010e). Analyzing and Selecting Text. [Webcast]. The
Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010f). Informational Text. [Webcast]. The Beginning
Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010g). Strategic Processing: Interactive Perspective.
[Webcast]. The Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010h). Critical Perspective [Webcast]. The Beginning
Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Response Perspective.[Webcast]. The Beginning
Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore: 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, (2010) Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon