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Analysis of a Literate Environment

EDUC-6706G-1 The Beginning Reader, PreK-3

Dr. Martha Moore

By: Angela L. Solomon

Getting to Know Literacy Learners,P-3

How do you get to know your literacy learners????

An educator should get to know their students on a personal level and have an awareness of an individual’s identity and learning preferences.~Laureate Education, Inc., 2010a

It is important to use a variety of assessments that will provide information an educator will find useful pertaining to the cognitive and noncognitive aspects of a student’s literacy development.~Laureate Education, Inc., 2010a

How Did I Accomplish Getting to Know My Students?

MRP (Motivation to Read Profile)

ERAS (Elementary Reading Attitude Survey)Running Record

Afflerbach (2007) states, “The reading survey portion of the MRP allows students to share their self-concepts, and how they value reading while the conversational interview explores individual aspects of students’ motivation to read, such as personal interests in reading” (p. 158).

•The questions posed by the ERAS address both the recreational and academic attitudes of students. •If a student’s survey responses describe the enjoyment of reading at home while, during school the student shows distaste towards reading, then I need to find the underlying issue as to why there is such a difference in attitude in the two settings (Afflerbach, 2007).

•It is an authentic assessment and it addresses word identification and reading fluency (Tompkins, 2010). •This assessment method shows if students are struggling in reading due to miscues that change the meaning of the sentence or text, which results in the text not making sense to the reader or taking away an entirely different meaning. •The running record will help me to understand how the ELLs are interpreting the story and if their determined reading level should be re-evaluated and re-leveled.

Selecting TextsWhat is the appropriate text for my readers?Students should be supplied with a variety of texts. Texts should fall throughout the various parts on the literacy matrix.~Laureate Education, Inc., 2010b

linguistic text (word-oriented)

semiotic texts (texts that communicate in a form other than words such as pictures, graphs, and/or icons)

Consider Readability:-sentence length-number of sentences-number of syllables-concept density-length of text-text structure

~Laureate Education, Inc., 2010b

The Literacy Matrix Utilized

Being educated and knowledgeable about the manyaspects of the literacy matrix will prepare and allow any educator to meet and surpass the needs of any district mandated reading/writing program. Educators can take the information and provide students with a diverse literacy experience. Having worked with a range of ages and grade levels, my classroom library is stocked with texts that fit into every quadrant of the literacy matrix on varying difficulty levels to meet the needs and interests of every learner within my classroom for both academic and recreationally interests and purposes.

Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective What is the interactive perspective?

The interactive perspective deals with reading and writing accurately, fluently including with comprehension. Students in a literate environment are both metacognitive and strategic readers and writers.~Laureate Education, Inc., 2010c

Time Span:Two 5o Minute

LessonsSubject: Dr. Martin

Luther King Jr.

Learning Objectives: Students will…-read and/or listen to stories about Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and think about how his fight helped to improve the lives of others and consider possible changes they could make on the future of society and humanity.-identify the different meanings of the word “big” as it relates to the idea of “big words” in story and lesson.-think of personal dreams, goals, and ideas and create their own “big words” either in the form of a found poem or an original.-read through the MLK Jr. excerpts and identify, list, and discuss “big words”.

How Big Are Martin’s Words???OVERVIEWMartin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., tells of King's childhood determination to use "big words" through biographical information and quotations. Using this book as well as other resources on Dr. King, students explore information on King's "big" words. They discuss both the literal and figurative meanings of the word “big” and how they apply to Dr. King’s words. They read an excerpt from Dr. King’s "I Have a Dream" speech and note the “big” words. Students then choose one of two options: (1) they write about their own "big" words and dreams in stapled or stitched books, or (2) they construct found poems using an excerpt from one of King's speeches.

~Traci GardnerAdaptationsELLs: To meet the needs of these students the teacher will present an assignment option that allows them to work from the text that was read and discussed in class versus finding different material and creating an original piece. Students will have the opportunity to use the Word Mover software to create a poem and be allowed to either print the poem directly from the program or rewrite the poem on a separate sheet of paper once it has been created online. Students will also have the advantage of hearing the speech aloud while following along versus having to read it alone. In the case of additional troubles, students can ask for help from classmates and/or the teacher. Students will benefit from the multiple reviews and discussions throughout the lesson to help make connections to the content and subject matter. Struggling Readers: Struggling readers will be benefit from having audio recordings to help with unfamiliar words as they follow along. Students will have several opportunities to work with other students or work one-on-one with the teacher during the individual assignment time for further assistance. The teacher will be reading the primary text aloud, with other texts being read several times with students following along or paired with another individual. This group of students will also find it helpful to participate in the reviews and discussions to help retain and comprehend the lesson’s information. Students will have several opportunities to ask questions.

Recommended Texts•Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Doreen Rappaport•A Picture Book of Martin Luther King Jr. by David A. Adler•Meet Martin Luther King Jr. by Johnny Ray Moore•Dear Dr. King: Letters from Today’s Children to Martin Luther King Jr. by Jan Colbert, Ernest C. Withers, Roy Cajero•I Have a Dream Too: A Child’s View of Martin Luther King Day by Joann Owens•If You Lived at the Time of Martin Luther King Jr. by Ellen Levine and Beth Peck•Martin Luther King, Jr. - I Have a Dream handout

Literacy Lesson: Critical & Response Perspectives

The critical perspective deals with the reader/writer judging, evaluating, and thinking critically about the text they are reading. ~Laureate Education, Inc., 2010c

The response perspective encourages the learner to read, react, and respond to the text in various meaningful ways.~Laureate Education, Inc., 2010c

Literacy Lesson: Critical & Response Perspectives

Time Span: Two 45 Minute Lessons

Theme: Applying Question-Answer Relationships to Pictures

Learning Objectives: Students will…-Categorize questions according to the four picture-question-answer relationships: right there, artist and you, on my own, and putting it together-Answer basic and inferential comprehension questions using the pictures in the text.- Explain their reasoning when answering comprehension questions.

Overview:Students are questioned about the words in a text on a daily basis, but what about the images? Pictures can help increase students' understanding of the text, topic, or story. In this multisession lesson designed for struggling readers, students are guided through a viewing of David Wiesner’s Tuesday, a wordless picture book. As students view the images, they are asked four different types of questions about the pictures. The questions range in difficulty from those with answers that can be found in the text to those that require inferences. Students learn to categorize questions by the four question types and use pictures to help them better understand a story. Students then apply what they learned to an independent reading of Istvan Banyai's Zoom. Students complete a worksheet with a series of questions about the story and then reflect on the usefulness of the questioning strategy.

~ Hall & Lee, 2012

Adaptations:This lesson’s adaptations are meant to accommodate the needs of all the students involved in the lesson. The lesson is geared toward struggling readers especially. The key to meeting the needs of the entire group lies in repeated practice, thorough questioning/discussion, and partner opportunities for students to talk over their learning and responses with a classmate before sharing with the teacher and entire class. The lesson involves books with no text, so students do not have to focus on reading aloud or struggling with words because they are allowed to use their own words to describe the story the picture is depicting.

Texts for Lesson-Tuesday by David Wiesner-Zoom by Istvan Banyai-A Day, A Dog by Gabrielle Vincent-Uncle Jed’s Barbershop by Margaree Mitchell-The Red Book by Barbara Lehman

How did the Lessons Create a Literate Environment?

“When children use reading strategies such as summarizing, questioning, or activating prior knowledge they are more likely to comprehend and remember what they read”. ~Stahl, 2004

Lesson one: Students were exposed to a variety of informational texts. The texts utilized linguistic and semiotic styles to allow students to observe that the pictures of a text can tell a story. As a result of repeated review, student-led discussions, and questioning, students were able to realize that if they follow the characteristics of a good reader as previously discussed they comprehend, recall the information from the text, and have a higher level of confidence in their reading.

Lesson 2: Students explored various picture books then books with texts to compare if the story they interpreted from the pictures was accurate. Students also learned that pictures help to add additional details to a story in many cases. This lesson gave students several opportunities to work in pairs and to tell a story in their own words.

“English language learners particularly benefit from small group and individual instruction because it allows them the extra thinking time they may need to process language, as well as, the verbal interaction necessary for English language development”. ~Herrell & Jordan, 2008

References

Gardner, T. (2012). How big are martin’s words? Thinking big about the future. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/martin-words-thinking-about-92.html?tab=4#tabs

Hall, L. & Li, Y. (2012). Applying question-answer relationships to pictures. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/applying-question-answer-relationships-370.html?tab=4#extensions

Herrell, A. & Jordan, M. (2008). 50 strategies for teaching English language learners.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Getting to know your students [Webcast]. The beginning reader, PreK–3. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Analyzing and selecting texts [Webcast]. The beginning reader, PreK–3. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c) Perspectives on literacy learning. [Webcast]. The Beginning Reader, PreK-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Stahl, K. A. D. (2004). Proof, practice, and promise: Comprehension strategy instruction in the primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 57(7), 598–608.