By Valerie Mitchell

February 16, 2014

*

*

Outline

*

“The greatest gift is a passion for reading.”

-Elizabeth Hardwick

• To teach a student to read and meet all of his/her literacy needs, first we must understand who the reader is as a whole child.

• We do this through exploring the students:

• Cognitive aspects of literacy development

• Non-cognitive aspects of literacy development

*

What I Have Learned

*We need to get to know the whole child and get to know their identity as a student and their background knowledge (Laureate Education, 2010a).

*When teaching a student, it is important not to assume anything about the child as a reader and how they view reading in and out of school.

* “How an individual feels about herself/himself as a reader could clearly influence whether reading would be sought or avoided–and how persistently comprehension would be pursued” (Henk& Melnick, 1995, p. 472).

* Thus, it is important, as a teacher, to know what your students’ cognitive aspects of literacy development are so you can create the literacy environment that is best suited for each student.

Ways to Find Out About Non-Cognitive Aspects of Students’ Literacy

Development

*Assessing Motivation to Read pp. 520-525

*(McKenna & Kear, 1990)

*Measuring Attitudes Toward Reading

pp. 630-634 (Henk & Melnik, 1995)

*Student Interest Inventory

*Conversations with the Student

What I Have Learned

*It’s important to find out about a student’s cognitive aspect of literacy development, determine where the student is with his/her instructional reading level

*Possible Areas to Assess

Concepts about Print Phonemic Awareness

Phonics Word Recognition

Word Identification Fluency

Vocabulary Comprehension

Writing Spelling

* Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS):

Assesses:

* Phonemic Awareness

* Phonics

* Fluency

* Comprehension

* Accuracy

* Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS):

Assesses:

* Phonemic Awareness

* Word Identification

* Spelling

* Developmental Reading Assessments (DRA’s)

Assesses:

* Comprehension

* Fluency

* Accuracy

Field Experience:

Getting to Know Your Literacy Learner

By Valerie Mitchell

*A brief analysis of my experience in the classroom with assessing cognitive and non-cognitive aspects

of the reader

Linguistic: Messages through words

Narrative Informational Text

Semiotic: communicating messages through other

forms than words

Literacy Matrix

-(Laureate Education, 2010b)

**Locating a book on the X axis: The closer to the

“Narrative” side will be books that follow a story structure with characters, plot, and setting. The closer to the “Informational Text” side will be books with text features and non-fiction literature

*Locating a book on the Y axis: The closer to the “Linguistic” side the book will relay its thoughts and messages through words. The closer to the “Semiotic” side will be books that convey its messages through forms other than words; such as pictures and text features

-(Laureate Education, 2010b)

*• Careful selection of student text is one of the most important

supporting tools for proper implementation of effective units. Purposefully selecting text is crucial for balanced literacy and for precise selection of books based on the desired lesson.

• Considerations for Analyzing Text:

• Narrative Text

• Informational Text

• Poetry

• Basal Reading Textbooks

• Internet Resources

• Three Dimensions of Difficulty

• Readability

• Be aware of artificial inflated readability

• Multisyllabic words repeated multiple time will give the text a higher reading level

• Student’s background knowledge with the subject

• Unique words that appear only once

• Text Length

• Struggling readers might be discouraged by this

• Text Structure

• Some authors use connective words and those that don’t make the text harder to read

• Print Size

• Large doesn’t always mean the text is easier to read and small doesn’t always mean the text is harder to read

• Visual Support

• Does the reader know how to read and understand the text features and pictures?

• (Laureate Education, 2010b)

*Selecting Text for the Literacy Block

By Valerie Mitchell

• A brief analysis of my experience in the classroom with purposeful selection of literary text based on the Literacy Matrix

• Interactive Perspective

• Critical Perspective

• Response Perspective

• Teaches children to be a strategic processor and thinker about text and the world around them.

• The ultimate goal of the Interactive Perspective is to teach children how to be literate learners who can navigate the textual world independently.

• (Laureate Education, 2010c)

• Visualizing

• Summarizing

• Predicting

• Questioning

• Schema

• Word Families

• Text Structure

• Word Attack Strategies

Goal: To be metacognitive about attacking reading skills and strategies.

• Modeling, Modeling, Modeling

• Class Discussion

• Cooperative Learning

• Graphic Organizers

• Scaffolding

• Purposefully Selected Text

Critical Perspective teaching students how to critically examine text (Laureate Education, 2010d).

• Who created the text

• What beliefs they may or may not have had when creating the text

• Was the author male or female

• What was the authors emotions about the subject

• What’s the moral or message the author tried to convey

• Response Perspective allows the children the opportunity to experience the text and respond to the text (Laureate Education, 2010d).

• The way the reader thoughtfully responds to the text is the overall outcome and what the reader “took away” from the story.

• How the reader responded to the moral or message of the text.

*

• Journaling

• Collages

• Me Bags

• Write a letter from a different perspective

• Write a Song

• Act out characters from different perspective

• Debates

• Persuasive Letters

Insight gained about literacy and literacy instruction:

• How class discussion is involved to help the reader understand the text better.

• “I also liked how the students is able to select their own text to help them become more interested in reading.”

• I also liked how involved a student can become in their text they selected by the response perspective.

• (Bradshaw, 2014)

• “Its important to use the matrix to help you choose the content books in the classroom” (Post, 2014).

• “How important it is to use different tools for students to be interactive with lessons and engaged in the response perspective” (Dale, 2014)

How might the information presented change your literacy practices and/or your literacy interactions with students?

• “The information will help me, as a parent, to let my child choose his own text and help him get more involved with what he’s interested in so he develops a deeper love for reading” (Bradshaw, 2014).

• “I was reminded, again, of the importance of choice for our students. For example, choice of books and the choice of how they show what they know” (Post, 2014).

• “I will be more aware of the types of books I present or select with kids. I need to me more aware of the Literacy Matrix to help guide my text selection” (Dale, 2014).

• “You can support me by keeping up with the reading strategies and continue to allow students to read more books of their interest. I will help you by continual communication and I will give my child more choice at home” (Bradshaw, 2014).

• “You can help me to be more strategic in teaching the strategies” (Post, 2014).

• “We can share great books and the purpose of why we are using them. We can bounce ideas off of each other to be able to get quality lessons and projects” (Dale, 2014).

Questions:• “How do we keep updated on current practices? Where do we

find the information?” (Post, 2014)

Bradshaw, B. (2014, February 20). Interview by V Mitchell [].Reflection on presentation.

Dale, K. (2014, February 20). Interview by V Mitchell [].Reflection on presentation.

Developmental reading assessment. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.pearsonschool.com

Dynamic indicator of basic early literacy skills. (2014). Retrieved from https://dibels.uoregon.edu

Henk, W., & Melnick, S. (1995). The reader self-perception scarle(rsps): A new tool for measuring how children feel about themselves as readers. The Reading Teacher, 48(6), 470-482.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Getting to know your students [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.com

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Analyzing & Selecting Text [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.com

Resources:

Resources Continued:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c). Interactive Perspective: Strategic Processing [Video webcast]. Retrieved from

http://www.courseurl.comLaureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010d). Perspectives on Literacy

Learning[Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.comMcKenna, M. C., & Kear, D. J. (1990). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new

tool for teachers. The Reading Teacher, 43(9), 626-639Phonological awareness literacy screening. (2007). Retrieved from http://

pals.virginia.eduPost, M. (2014, February 20). Interview by V Mitchell [].

Reflection on presentation.