1. LITERATE ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS
Jennifer Waring-Hollow
Walden University
Instructor: Dr. Phyllis McCully
Education 6706: The Beginner Reader PreK-3
December 15, 2013

2. FRAMEWORK FOR LITERACY INSTRUCTION
*Getting to Know Your Students
*Selecting Texts
*Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
*Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response
Perspective

3. GETTING TO KNOW YOUR LITERACY LEARNERS
Getting to know your literacy learners is a
crucial component for a student’s success. We
need to have more fidelity to our students and
have their best interest at heart (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010b).
Ways to do this are through cognitive and noncognitive assessments.

4. GETTING TO KNOW YOUR LITERACY LEARNERS
(CONT’D)
Cognitive assessments are used to know where
students are academically as they are developing as
readers and learners.
Formative assessments are ongoing assessments
used to help monitor and drive classroom instruction.
*Examples: partner talk, classroom
observations,
exit slips, and graphic organizers
Summative assessments are used to evaluate student
learning at the end of a lesson or unit.
*Examples: tests, projects, and standardized tests

5. GETTING TO KNOW YOUR LITERACY LEARNERS
(CONT’D)
Non-Cognitive Assessments are used to know
how students feel about reading and what
motivates a student to read both in and out of the
classroom. Motivation is an integral component of
reading instruction (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling,&
Mazzoni, 1996).
Examples: Elementary Reading Attitude
Survey ( Mckenna & Kear, 1990) and
Motivation to Read Profile (Gambrell,
Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni, 1996).

6. SELECTING TEXTS
There are two kinds of reading genres: Narrative
(fiction) and Informative (non-fiction).
Texts can be linguistic (words), semiotic (pictures),
or somewhere in the middle.
Selecting an appropriate text for students is
important because it helps the teacher make
instructional decisions, connects what you do with
other things, and helps with classroom goals
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2010a).

7. SELECTING TEXTS (CONT’D)
This literacy matrix is used to help analyze a
text and see if there is a balance with the
students and what they are reading (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010a).

8. SELECTING TEXTS (CONT’D)
There are dimensions of difficulty within a text.
Considerations are:
*readability of a text
*sentence length
*number of syllables
*concept density of a text
*text structure
(Laureate Education, Inc.,
2010a)

9. LITERACY LESSONS
Three types of literacy perspectives (Laureate Education,
Inc., 2010d):
Interactive: Teaches students how to read.
Critical: Teaches students how to critically examine a text.
Response: Allows students the opportunity to experience
and respond to a text.
***We need to change perspectives in order to create wellrounded readers.

10. LITERACY LESSONS: INTERACTIVE PERSPECTIVE
The interactive perspective represents a host
of features such as teaching children how to be
strategic processors and thinkers (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010d).
Educators tend to focus on the interactive
perspective when teaching students how to
read.

11. LITERACY LESSONS: INTERACTIVE PERSPECTIVE
EXAMPLES
Through this perspective I was able to teach a
guided reading lesson about bats to my
emergent and beginner readers. Within this
lesson I incorporated the “Five Pillars:”
Phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary,
fluency, and comprehension (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010f) along with focusing on
the strategy “asking and answering questions.”

12. LITERACY LESSONS: CRITICAL & RESPONSE
PERSPECTIVE
Using the critical response allows students to
examine texts from multiple perspectives, enables
students to think and evaluate texts critically, and
judge validity or veracity of a text (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2010c).
The response perspective is meant to provide an
experience for students to have that
moment/space made available to transfer children
and their identities (Laureate Education, Inc.,
2010e).

13. LITERACY LESSONS: CRITICAL & RESPONSE
PERSPECTIVE EXAMPLES
During whole group instruction students were
taught how to think critically about the big idea
and/or central message of a text. Using the
instructional procedure “Grand Conversations”
from the text “Literacy in the 21st Century A
Balanced Approach” students were given the
opportunity to have “discussions about stories in
which students explore the big ideas and reflect
on their feelings” (Tompkins, 2010, p 436). This
instructional procedure allowed students to think
both critically and respond to literacy in a
successful way.

14. 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.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010a). Analyzing and
selecting texts [Video webcast]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_gro
up_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flaun
cher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_4065554_1%26url%3D
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010b). [Video webcast].
Retrieved from Changes in literacy education
https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_gro
up_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flaun
cher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_4065554_1%26url%3D

15. REFERENCES
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010c). Critical perspectives [Video
webcast]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_
2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%
3DCourse%26id%3D_4065554_1%26url%3D
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010d). Perspectives on literacy
learners [Video webcast]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_
2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%
3DCourse%26id%3D_4065554_1%26url%3D
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010e). [Video webcast]. Retrieved
from Response perspective
https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_
2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%
3DCourse%26id%3D_4065554_1%26url%3D

16. REFERENCES
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010f). [Video webcast].
Retrieved from The stages
https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_gro
up_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flaun
cher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_4065554_1%26url%3D
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.