2. What is Literacy?
Dr. Gail Tompkins (2010) states, "that it is the
ability that a student acquires in both reading
and writing to do a variety of tasks at school and
outside of school ".
3. Getting to Know Literacy Learners.
• It is important for teachers to get to know their students and their
interests. Formal and informal assessments make it possible for
a teacher to discover this and a students weaknesses and
strengths.
• By using the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna &
Kear, 1990), I was able to find out my students reading interests,
their likes and dislikes, and what I could do to motivate them in
reading.
4. Selecting Texts
• Selecting texts can be a challenge if a teacher is not aware of
what they need to be doing when it comes to their students and
their goals.
• Texts need to be age and level appropriate.
• Texts need to be informative, linguistic, narrative or semiotic.
• Literacy Matrix is a tool that teachers can use that helps select
the appropriate texts for their students (Laureate Education,
2011).
5. Literacy Matrix
• In the literacy matrix,
teachers place texts in
quadrants depending on if
they're narrative or
informational texts and if
they're more linguistic,
which is more word-driven,
or semiotic, which includes
more pictures than text.
6. According to Dr. Janice
Almasi, there are several
difficulty considerations to
take into account when
determining how challenging
a text will be for students.
Teachers should look at the
readability (sentence length,
number of syllables, etc.), the
text's length, its structure
(informational, descriptive,
cause/effect,
problem/solution,
compare/contrast, poetic,
etc.), its use of connective
words or signal words, the
size of the print, and the
visual support (Laureate
Education, 2011).
7. Research for Selecting Texts
• Students who are exposed to a variety of texts at
an early age tend to show growth at a quicker
rate in obtaining literacy skills (Tompkins, 2010).
8. What is Interactive Perspective?
• It is teaching children to read and write, accurately with fluency and
comprehension.
• Ultimate goal is to teach children how to be literate learners who
can navigate the textual world on their own.
Teach by:
• Activate student’s metacognition through teaching and lessons.
• Model own strategies and met cognition by using them to get
students thinking.
• Build a schema
• Use visuals. Example: Using a picture of a brain and explaining how
our brain has file folders in it to retain and regurgitate memory as
needed.
• Other sources: books, things studied school, family and friends,
television, and radio can be used.
9. One good strategy: Read Aloud
• Pick a book
• Prepare to share the book
• Introduce the book
• Read the book interactively
• Involve students in after-reading activities
(Tompkins, 2010)
10. What is Critical Perspective?
Teachers can help students to do this by asking questions related to
the text.
Questions students about:
• The author’s perspective
• Relate to the gender, race, social status
Give students opportunity to share and discuss
Critical perspective asks the students to evaluate, judge,
and critically examine a text in order to determine validity
(Laureate Education, 2011a).
11. Critical Example
When studying tall tales, the
students and I read a book
about Paul Bunyan. We had
an oral discussion about the
types of books that we have
been reading and what genre
the texts are. I incorporated
“Talking Drawings”. This gave
them a chance to draw a
mental image of what they
know or think about Paul
Bunyan and Babe.
12. What is Response Perspective?
• Response perspective is reading, reacting, and
responding to the text in many meaningful
ways (Laureate Education, 2011b).
• Students need to reflect on the meaning of
text and how it relates with their lives.
13. Make a Dent
• Predict
• Ask questions
• Find out why?
• Have students orally respond
• Have them write journals
14. Conclusion:
All three perspectives that have been
discussed in this course are important
when creating a literate environment
that is rich in teaching for the teacher
and learning and growing in reading
for the student.
15. References:
Afflebach, P., Pearson, P. D., & Paris, S. G.(2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills
and reading strategies. Reading Teacher, 61 (5), 364-373
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Analyzing and selecting text. [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_3399010_1%26url%3D
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Critical perspective [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_2823 070_1%26url%3D
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Response perspective. [Video webcast]. Retrieved
from https://class.waldenu.edu/ webapps/portal/frameset.jsp? tab_tab_group_id =_2
_1&url=%2F webapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%
3DCourse%26id%3D_2823 070_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,
MA: Allyn & Bacon
