1. Creating a Literate Environment

2. Get to Know the Learners Find out about the “Whole child” (Laureate Education Inc., 2010b) Identifying my student’s interests and motivations for reading was the beginning step to creating a positive and exciting feeling about reading Motivation and Interest Assessments Elementary Reading Assessment Survey- Allowed me to understand my students feelings on reading, when they enjoy reading, what kinds of books they enjoy, if reading is easy or difficult for them. http://www.professorgarfield.org/parents_teachers/printables/pdfs/reading/readingsurvey.pdf

3. Getting to Know the Learners Observation Observation of student reading allowed me to understand strengths and weaknesses in the five pillars of reading instruction. Five pillars Phonemic Awareness Phonics Vocabulary Fluency Comprehension (Laureate Education Inc., 2010f)

4. Getting to Know the learners Sight Word Checklist By understanding my student’s sight word vocabulary, I was able to gear instruction towards my learners individual levels. Observation, conferencing with students, checklists and examining student work allow teachers to monitor students’ learning and plan instructional activities to best suit the needs of thelearners (Tompkins, 2010). Through assessment, I was able to gather information on my student’s interests and ability levels in order to determine the skills and strategies to create successful learning experiences.

5. Selecting Texts When selecting texts for classroom instruction, it is important keep student needs and interests in mind as well as the goals of of students and how we as teachers are going to achieve those goals (Laureate Education Inc., 2010a). Using the Literacy Matrix, I was able to choose texts that were appropriate for the type of lessons, students and focus of the lesson. After finding a variety of texts, I chose the most appropriate texts to use for the focus of my lesson.

7. Interactive Perspective To teach students to become critical thinkers, we must guide them through the strategies in order to independently navigate text (Laureate Education Inc., 2010c). Modeling and scaffolding: students are able to learn and begin to understand the strategies needed to become “good readers” The stories The Sunflower House, by Eve buntingand One Bean, by Anne Rockwell were used to teach my students to make personal connections and discover rhyming words in the context of a story.

8. Interactive Perspective Extended activities: Extended activities allow for students to practice using the strategies independently Assessment allows the teacher to monitor student learning and create further instruction when needed “The main reason for assessing strategies is to find clues about what the student is not doing or what is being done incorrectly so that teachers can reteach better strategies” (Afflerbach, Pearson, Paris, 2008, p. 371).

9. Critical and Response Perspectives Critical Perspective Students learn to evaluate text in a deeper perspective (Molden, 2007) Students question, examine and look beyond the text Look at author’s motivation for writing the text Look at author’s perspective on the text What message is the text sending to the reader

10. Critical and Response Perspective Response Perspective Readers engage with the text and it changes the way they may view things in their own life (Laureate Education Inc., 2010e) How does the story make the reader feel The reader can identify his/her own feelings with feelings within the text Reader can relate to the text and include his/her own personal experiences

11. Critical and Response Perspective Response Perspective Incorporating reading and writing allows for the students develop new knowledge and understand the text more thoroughly (Laureate Education Inc., 2010d)Journal writing Drawing pictures Connection stems Multi-sensory approaches

12. References Afflerbach, P. (2007). Understanding and using reading assessment, K–12. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Analyzing and Selecting Text.[Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Getting to Know Your Students. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c).Interactive Perspective: Strategic Processing. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010d). Perspectives on Early Literacy. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author.

13. References Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010e).Response Perspective. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010f). The Beginning Reader. [Webcast]. Learning experiences. Baltimore, MD: Author. Molden, K. (2007). Critical literacy, the right answer for the reading classroom: Strategies to move beyond comprehension for reading improvement. Reading Improvement, 44(1), 50–56.Use the Education Research Complete database, and search using the article’s Accession Number: 24954486. Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach(5th ed.). Boston: Allyn& Bacon.