Literate Environment Analysis

Wilma Music

Dr. Gina PinkThe Beginning Reader, Pre-K-3 EDUC-6706-2

Critical Parts of an Literate Environment

I. Getting to Know Literacy Learners, P-3

II. Selecting Texts

III. Literacy Perspectives Lessons:

Interactive Perspective

Critical Perspective

Response Perspective

I. Getting to Know Your Literacy Learners

There are many ways to get to know your students. I use several assessment at the beginning of the year to see where each of my student’s reading level, reading interest, and reading motivation is. As a teacher, all these components are important to getting to know my student.

Assessments:Reading inventory (Dibels) The Reader Self-Perception Scale (RSPS) (Henk & Melnick, 1995, p.470The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna & Kear, 1990, p. 626)

Activities to Assess Cognitive and Non-cognitive abilities

• “cognitive which is how the students thinks and learns and these are measured through standardized testing (Roberts, 2013).

• Cognitive Assessment:• “Reading inventories provide us with the means to assess and evaluate many

of these differs aspects of students’ reading performance and growth and can provide information on the students’ phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (Afflerbach, 2012, p. 27-28).

• When a reading inventory assessment is given, it enable’s a teacher to recognize several cognitive aspects of a students’ literacy development such as their reading fluency and comprehension levels. With this knowledge, teachers are able to understand and develop a program to assist their students’ needs.

Non-Cognitive Assessment• “Non-cognitive aspects include interpersonal skills, persistence,

communication skills and other "soft" skills that are not objectively measured” (Roberts, 2013).

• The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. The article states that “the student’s attitude toward reading is a central-factor affecting reading performance” and it was observed that “the emotional response to reading…is the primary reason most readers read, and probably the primary reason most nonreaders do not read” (McKenna & Kear, 1990, p. 626).

• The Reader Self-Perception Scale (RSPS): This is a new tool for measuring how children feel about themselves as readers. As stated in this article: “we know that when children feel negatively about reading, their achievement tends to suffer. These children will either avoid reading altogether or read with little real involvement (Henk & Melnick, 1995, p.470).

II. Selecting Text Literacy Matrix

The literacy Matrix by Dr. Hartman degrees range between narrative and informational text. Within this range, he explains the difference between texts being linguistic and semiotic. Linguistic text is oriented toward more words in the texts and semiotic text uses more pictures, graphs, icons, symbols, etc. as communication. (Laureate, Education, Inc., 2010a).

Linguistic Text (more words)

Narrative Text Informational Text

Semiotic Text (more icons, graphs)

By gaining this vital information from Dr. Hartman; I have come to realize the importance selecting texts that will benefit all my students’ needs, as well as developing a balanced unit that incorporates all degrees of the Literacy Matrix. As he stated, by understanding the Literacy Matrix, this will help the teacher plan, deliver the different types of texts, and have a balance within these texts (Laureate, Education, Inc., 2010a).

Perspectives of Literacy Lessons

all of these perspectives play a vital rolewhen teaching reading to our students

(Laureate Education Inc. (2010)

Interactive Perspective

Critical Perspective

Response Perspective

Three Literacy Perspectives• The “interactive perspective” that teaches

students to be strategic processors and thinkers, which often teachers lend toward this perspective when teaching. Dr. Almasi (2010)

• The “critical perspective” is teaching a student how to examine text and think critically about the text when reading. Dr. Almasi (2010)

• The “response perspective” that allows children the opportunity to experience and respond to text in a range of ways. Dr. Almasi (2010)

III. Interactive Perspective

“Interactive perspective” teaches students to be strategic processors and thinkers and promotes students’ independent use of reading

strategies and skills. - (Laureate Education Inc. 2010)

The interactive perspective teaches students how to read. These strategies may include, letter recognition, teaching phonics awareness, the different reading strategies and many other reading skills.

. One strategy is making words “Making words is a teacher-directed spelling activity in which students arrange letter cards to spell words (Tompkins, 2010, p. 447). I use words from the text and I also have a book “Making Words” that focuses on different word families.

IV. Critical and Response Perspectives

The critical perspective is very important that it allows students to think deeper when reading a text. It is very important that students are able to able to judge and view things critically and distinguish whether the text is valid. “Students also need to understand and be able to see the difference in how the text is written and the purpose the author had in writing the text” (Laureate Education Inc., 2010a).One method :Question-Answer-Relationship “teaches students to be aware of whether they are likely to find the answer to a comprehension question “right there” on the page, between the lines, or beyond the information provided in the text so that they’re better able to answer it (Tompkins, 2010, p. 451).

The response perspective allows the teacher to experience teaching on a more personal level with students. When a student is allowed to respond to a text, it helps them to understand what they have read and be able to better relate (Laureate Education Inc., 2010)

Ways for students to response is through…• Reading logs• Double Entry Journals• Partner or Buddy Journals and/or discussions• Readers Theater (students enjoy acting out and reluctant readers

tend to do better while acting.)

I have found letting students response to text keeps their interest levels higher and this in turn helps with motivation in reading.

Resources

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010a). [Video Webcast]. Perspectives on literacy Learning. Retrieved from The Beginning Reader, Pre-K

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010a). Critical Perspective [Videowebcast]. In The beginning reader, prek-3.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010b). Response Perspective [Videowebcast]. In The beginning reader, prek-3

Laureate Education, Inc., (Producer). (2010a). Analyzing and Selecting Text [Video webcast]. Retrieved from the Beginning Reader, Pre K-3

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.

The Reader Self-Perception Scale (RSPS): A new tool for measuring how children feel about themselves as readers: Henk, William A; Melnick, Steven A.The Reading Teacher; Mar 1995; 48, 6; Research Library Core pg. 470. Retrieved September 13, 2013 http://www.siu-voss.net/Henk___Melnick_1995_RSPS.pdf