1. Literate Environment Analysis Presentation
Avril Cogle
Walden University
Cindee Easton
EDUC-6706 The Beginning Reader, PreK-3
June 18, 2012

2. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
 As an educator it is crucial that you find ways to have a
better understanding of students as inimitable literacy
learners. When you get to know your students in regards to
their literacy development it easier for you as an educator
to support their literacy accomplishments and to promote
their development as lifelong proficient readers. “The better
you know your students the better able you will be to
connect them with text that will impact them in profound
ways” (Laureate Education Inc., 2009). There are a
varieties of ways in which a teacher can get to know the
cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of his or her students.
This can be done through the use of Reading Inventories.
Reading Inventories are “particularly effective in providing
information that will guide teachers instructional planning”
(Afflerbach, 2007).

3. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
 Cognitive Assessment: The Developmental Reading
Assessment [DRA 1] (Beaver, 2001). This assessment was
used to evaluate a small group of students’ reading
engagement, oral reading fluency and comprehension
skills.

4. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
 Non- Cognitive Assessment: Motivation to Read Profile [MRP] (Grambrell,
Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni, 1996) survey. It gave me insights into the three
students I assessed self concept as readers and the value they saw in reading.
 Below are two sample questions:

5. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
 Non- Cognitive Assessment: The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey
(ERAS) assessed the three students’ recreational and academic
reading (McKenna & Kear, 1990).
 Below is a sample question:
"For students to be successful they must be motivated, have a positive
attitude, good self-concept, and capable of making accurate
attributions for their performances" Afflerbach (2007).

6. Selecting Texts
 Once teachers comprehend what their students need to
learn, what they like to do, and what motivates them, it is
easier for them to select appropriate engaging texts with
these students in mind. For the three students I worked
with I choose texts that best suited their individual needs
and their interests. I choose informational, narrative, and
online texts for the three students I worked with. I believe
that it is important that students are given equal opportunity
to be exposed to a variety of texts.

7. Selecting Texts
 Dr. Hartman Literacy Matrix (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009) is like a handy
tool that gives a visual picture of the types of texts that students are exposed
to. It helps a teacher to see the types of books that students are exposed to
and whether or not they are given equal opportunity with all books. A book can
be semiotic and falls in the narrative quadrant, it is wordless but tells a story. It
can also be linguistic and falls in the narrative quadrant meaning that it has
mainly words but it tells a story. It can be linguistic but is mainly informational
and semiotic for example an online text that consists of a still or moving
pictures and is mainly informational. It is important to take books that we are
selecting and move them along the continuum so that students are given the
right book that suit their needs and interests.

8. Selecting Texts
 Analyzing and selecting texts all have an important place in the classroom. The
continuum gives teachers a full representation of the kinds of books that all
students are engaging with. It is vital to move students along the continuum so
that they can reach their full literacy potential (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009).

9. Selecting Texts
 Another way to analyze and select text is to examine it in terms of difficulty. Dr.
Almasi explained this by using the Literacy Matrix shown below (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2009a). She explained that a text difficulty can be judged by
the following:
1.Readability:
These includes (a) sentence length ( b) number of sentences
( c) number of syllables ( d) compactness of concept
2. Text length
3. Text structure ( e.g. informational, descriptive, poetic)
4. Size of print
5. Visual support (e.g. charts, graphs, photographs)
It is vital when analyzing and selecting texts teachers based their selections and
analysis on the needs of students and the text properties (Laureate Education,
Inc., 2009a).

10. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
 The interactive perspective on literacy learning main aim is to teach
students to read and write accurately, fluently, and with
comprehension. “The Interactive Perspective teaches children how to
be literate learners who can navigate the textual world independently”
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). A critical factor of a students'
development as readers is the ability for the teacher to be able to
employ effective reading strategies that will help them to become
proficient readers. The strategies that are employed should be well
executed so as to support students' self-sufficient use of the different
literacy strategies and promote the development of their literacy skills.
As a teacher of literacy it is important that I select the right text and
devise varied instructional practices that will help with the language
and literacy development of my students. It is also vital that I create
ways to inspire my students to become strategic independent readers
and thinkers thus enabling them to maximize their full literacy potential.

11. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
I worked with a group of three students for
literacy instruction. The focus was on
word recognition and comprehension
strategies. The text that I used for this
lesson was A Camping Spree with Mr.
Magee written by (Dunsen, 2003). This
narrative text was specially chosen
because the three students I worked with
expressed their love for camping. This
was a way to motivate them. To activate
their prior knowledge students worked in
mixed groups and wrote down on flip
charts what they knew about camping.

12. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
 Realia was also used to activate prior knowledge through discussion.

13. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
 Students discussed the different
family words for “camp” and used
them in sentences.
 Students role-play vocabulary
words for better understanding.
 The vocabulary words were written
on cards in both English and
Spanish to support the English
Language Learner that was in the
group.
 Pictures of the vocabulary words
were also placed with words and
placed on the word wall for future
reference.
 Students made prediction through
picture walk and discussion.

14. Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
 Students refined their predictions by making
reference to the text (Tompkins, 2010).
 In the end students and teacher engaged in
Grand Conversation (Tompkins, 2010) activity.
We discussed what we found interesting about
the story; then made text to text connection, text
to self connection, and text to world connection.
 Students summarized the main events in the
story through dramatization.
 Students read along with the story for fluency and
comprehension online at
http://www.storytimestandouts.com/2011/02/14/picture-books-best/highlighting-one-
.
 Students worked independently by answering
comprehension questions based on story in their
Reading Logs.
 They also did an open-mind portrait of either Mr.
Magee or Dee the dog to show his or its thoughts
the night when their camper (van) fell into the
river.

15. Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response Perspective
Successful readers know how to elicit meanings from texts.
They are able to make a representation of ideas that are
being expressed in text, summarize, make judgment,
evaluate, think critically about text and respond to the text
in a personal and emotional manner. The capability to
reflect critically about a text is essential. It is vital that
teachers utilize critical and respond perspectives in their
classrooms instructions so that they can give their students
the opportunity to interrogate any texts in ways that will
lead to their full literacy success. The critical perspective is
used to “teach children how to critically examine text” while
the response perspective “gives children the opportunity to
experience and respond to texts in a personal and
emotional way” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009).

16. Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response Perspective
For the critical and response perspective lesson I worked
with the same three students. I modeled various strategies
for them so that they would be able to apply whatever
strategies learned to make judgment, evaluate and think
critically about the text. They would also be able to use the
strategies learned to read, react, and respond to the text in
a variety of meaningful ways (Walden University, 2012). I
did Shared Teaching through Interactive Read Aloud.
According to (Durand, Howell, Schumacher, & Sutton,
2008), interactive read aloud supports meaning and boosts
the interaction between the text and the students.

17. Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response Perspective
 The story that I engaged my
students in was Thea the Yellow
Tomato written by (Brown, 1998).
This is a story about Thea, the only
yellow tomato in a school of red
tomatoes, has no friends to sit with
during lunch, or play with during
recess, but she eventually learns
not to feel different when she finally
found acceptance from her
classmates. This was a story to help
my students understand, appreciate,
and respect each other’s
differences.

18. Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response
Perspective
The activities and strategies in the lesson used to build students’ critical
and response perspectives were:
 Activated students prior knowledge through questioning.
 “Questioning the Author” Tompkins (2010) a few examples: Why do
you think the writer wrote three of the title words in red and one in
yellow? What is she trying to tell us? Why do you think the author has
an illustration of an extremely large yellow tomato along with two
minute red tomatoes on the cover of the book? What is she trying to
convey to us?
 Students Talk Partners to get answers to questions asked.
 Picture walk to make predictions about the story.
 Students role-play some of the vocabulary words and used them in
sentences for better understanding. “The understanding of word
meanings is essential to successful and fluid comprehension in
reading” (Herrell & Jordan, 2008).

19. Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response
Perspective
Other activities through out the lesson to build students critical and response
perspectives were:
 Thought Tracking: Students discussed what they thought the characters in the
story were thinking.
 Think Aloud: Students explained what they were thinking about a character and
author.
 Hot Seat : “this allows students to explore character, analyze story events,
make inferences, and supply different interpretations for the story being read
(Tompkins, 2010).
 Grand Conversation: Used with students for them to connect to text in a
personal and emotional manner through text to text connection.
 Learning Log “It is a place for the students to think on paper” (Tompkins, 2010)
 Reading Logs: They responded to text in a personal and emotional manner.
 Open- Mind Portraits: Students were given the opportunity to drew the main
character or a character of their choice and write their reflection about that
character.
 Drama was used to summarize story and for deeper understanding of the text.

20. Conclusion
 Conclusion: Creating a Literate Environment for
our students is very important. It is vital that as
teachers we get to know our students, select and
analyze texts that cater to their varied needs, plan
effective instructions that encompasses all three
perspectives which will give our students the
opportunity to interact, make analytical judgment
and respond to texts in consequential ways.

21. References
 Afflerbach, P. (2007). Understanding and using reading assessment, K–
12 (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
 Beaver, J. M. (2001). Developmental reading assessment, grades K-3.
Parsippany, NJ: Celebration Press.
 Brown, S. ( 1998) Thea the yellow tomato. Evanston, IL: Freedom Pub
Co.
 Dunsen, C.V. (2003).A Camping Spree with Magee. British Columbia
V6P6E5, BC: Chronicle Books LLC.
 Dunsen, C.V. (2003).A Camping Spree with Magee. Retrieved from
http://www.storytimestandouts.com/2011/02/14/picture-books-
best/highlighting-one-of-my-all-time-favourites-a-camping-spree-with-mr-
magee/.
 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.

22. References
 Gambrell, L. B., Palmer, B. M., Codling, R. M., & Mazzoni, S. A. (1996).
Assessing motivation to read. The Reading Teacher, 49(7), 518–533.
 Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2008). 50 strategies for teaching English language
learners (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Analyzing and selecting texts
[Video webcast]. Retrieved from
http://class.walden.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tabtabgroupid=21&url=%Weba
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Getting to know your
students. 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: Allyn & Bacon.
 Walden University. (2012). Framework for Literacy Instruction. Retrieved
month, day, 2012 from
http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/courses/37910/CRSWUPSYC62053502436/
Framework for Literacy Instruction 03-10. doc.