The document summarizes research on best practices in literacy instruction for beginning readers. It discusses using a balanced approach that incorporates explicit instruction, authentic application, integration of reading and writing, use of trade books and textbooks, instructional differentiation, and linking of assessment and instruction. It provides examples of non-cognitive and cognitive assessments that can be used to evaluate students holistically and identify individual literacy needs. The document also discusses selecting texts based on readability and student characteristics, and using a variety of strategies and activities to develop students' literacy skills in phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

1. By Carolina Seibel
Walden University
EDUC-6706R-4
The Beginning Reader, PreK-3
Dr. Denise Love

2. Tompkins (2010) describes what teachers do in a literacy enriched
classroom:
 Balance explicit instruction with authentic application
 Integrate reading and writing
 Teach with trade books as well as textbooks
 Combine instructional approaches
 Incorporate new technologies into literacy instruction
 Differentiate instruction so every student can succeed.
 Link assessment and instruction
Incorporating this research-based, balanced approach into my
classroom has provided successful results with non-cognitive
and cognitive measurements.

3.  Dr. Almansi (2010) discusses the importance of
getting to know your students through activities
and Dr. Afflerbach (2010) discusses the use of
informal and formal reading inventories.
 Combined, these two educators provide powerful
advice that will create a sense of community, build
trust, and provide critical information to address
books of interest and identify cognitive and non-
cognitive aspects of literacy in my classroom of
children.

4.  Non-cognitive assessments measure a student’s
motivation and attitude towards reading. Students
must believe in themselves in order to become
successful readers (Afflerbach, 2007).
 Rider & Colmar (2008) express a child's academic
self-concept as a direct result of their academic
success and experiences. "We feel good about
ourselves because we do well.“
 Henk and Melnick (1995) referred to a national
poll that resulted in teachers ranking motivation
and creating interest in reading in their students as
their first priority.

5.  Non-cognitive assessments used
 ERAS (Elementary Reading Attitude Survey). This
survey asks questions about a child's interest about
reading books as a recreational activity and as an
academic activity.
 Observations
 Conversations

6. Cognitive assessments focus on how a child
masters literacy skills and strategies as they
develop as readers, such as phonemic
awareness, phonics, sight word recognition,
and fluency (Afflerbach, 2007).

7.  Cognitive assessments used
 EasyCBM, which identifies one minute fluencies in the
following areas--phoneme segmentation (sounds heard and
broken down in words), letter names, letter sounds, word
reading, and passage reading.
 Harcourt Weekly Lesson Test provides accurate information
in the areas of comprehension, phonics/spelling, high-frequency
words, focus skills, and vocabulary, according to our curriculum
lessons that week.
 CORE Phonics Survey assessment is a direct approach to
identifying phonic skills. It identifies any gaps in letter names
(upper and lowercase), letter sounds (long and short), and
reading and decoding (CVC, blends, digraphs, r-controlled,
long vowel, variant vowels, low frequency vowel, and multi-
syllabic).

8. By administering these non-cognitive and
cognitive assessments, I was able to
evaluate each child as a whole. I was able
to identify their motivations, identities,
schema, and academic abilities, so that I
could address their individual literacy needs
through activities, lessons, and texts and
create a literate environment.

9. My three students included two boys and
one girl, who are beginning readers
transitioning on reading CVC words,
consonant blends and practicing fluency.
The girl enjoys reading and the boys do not.
One boy is on an articulation Speech IEP
and the girl is an ELL student. Together,
these students have gained confidence,
motivation, and academic gains and
positive attitudes towards reading.

10. Dr. Hartman (2010) and Dr. Almasi (2010)
analyze books based on pictures,
information, narrative, and informational
aspects in their relation to readability.
Together, a literacy matrix has been created
that aligns books on a spectrum that
determines their readability through
narrative or informational books based on
linguistic and semiotic cues.

11.  Linguistic
Literacy MatrixNarrative Informational
Semiotic(pictures)
Readabilility

12. • Linguistic
Narrative Informational
Semiotic (pictures)
Readabilility
Insects by Illa Podendorf
Locus Pocus! A book to bug you
By Douglas McKelvey
Sophie’s Masterpiece by E. Spinelli

13. Difficulty of text is measured through multiple characteristics
*Readability: sentence length, concept difficulty, singletons
*Text length
*Text structure: literacy elements
*Size of print
*Visual supports: graphic organizers and pictures
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2011e).
Texts should relate to student interests, schema, culture, etc.

14. Texts selected
 Insects by Illa Podendorf—information
with semiotic and linguistic aspects.
 Locus pocus! A book to bug you by
Douglas McKelvey—narrative with
semiotic tendencies.
 Sophie’s masterpiece by E. Spinelli—
narrative with semiotic characteristics.

15.  The literacy matrix guided my selection of books, so that I could
provide an arrangement of books to fulfill the individual needs of
my students and activate their schema.
 Dr. Richard J. Stiggins (2005) defines performance assessments as
students engaging in activities to demonstrate performance of
skills or create products based on quality standards as the
observers judge based on performances. Through the use of
Insects my students created insects with a head, thorax, abdomen,
and six legs.
 Sophie’s Masterpiece is available from storylineonline.com and
these beginning readers were able to use technology and listen to
the story so they could follow along and practice fluency.
 Other activities included vocabulary ABC dictionaries, rhyming
activities, adjective activities, Venn diagrams, and other literacy
promoting activities to enhance comprehension.

16.  Students must learn how to become metacognitive to
help them comprehend text through the five pillars:
 Phonics
 Phonemic Awareness
 Comprehension
 Fluency
 Vocabulary
As students practice these five pillars, then they
become strategic processors and thinkers (Laureate
Education, 2010g)

17.  Through the interactive process, students were taught
vocabulary words (greedy, consequences, and regret)
through phonics applications and word analysis skills in
order to decode words through repeated reading to gain
accuracy, fluency, expression, and comprehension.
 Together, we read the stories King Midas and His Gold
by Patricia and Fredrick McKissack and in connection
to the holiday season, we watched Dr. Seuss’How the
Grinch Stole Christmas.
 After having discussions about each vocabulary
word, sentence frames were used to promote writing,
such as, “I regret____, because it hurt
my_____feelings.

18.  Together, we read the stories King Midas and His Gold by
Patricia and Fredrick McKissack and in connection to the
holiday season, we watched Dr. Seuss’How the Grinch Stole
Christmas.
 After having discussions about each vocabulary word,
sentence frames were used to promote writing, such as, “I
regret____, because it hurt my_____feelings.” and “I felt
regret when I ____, and my consequence was____.” “I
was greedy when I wanted ______all to myself and I
didn’t want to share!”
 These activities and using kinesthetic motion to act out the
words greedy (jumping up and down yelling mine, mine,
mine!) and consequences (pointing fingers and shaking
head no) and regret (sad faces and saying sorry) were all
activities that promoted the interactive perspective.

19.  As a follow up activity, I read The Chocolate Touch
by Patrick Skene Catling to the class. We completed
Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast King Midas’
story, which promotes student comprehension,
especially when readability is difficult (Laureate
Education, 2010g).
 In order to ensure vocabulary and technology
enrichment, I created an Activotes assessment
through the Promethean Board and assessed students
on their recollection of the vocabulary words-greedy,
consequences, and regret. All participants earned
100%.

20.  Critical Perspective provides an opportunity for
students to critically examine a text by evaluating the
believability of texts and how students think about
texts while reading, such as an author’s purpose
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2010h).
 Dr Vacca (2010) discusses the importance of
incorporating writing into reading. He provides
examples of response journals and double-entry
journals. Writing allows students to absorb complex
perspectives and relate them to their schema
(Laureate Education, 2010k).

21.  Continued work with these students included
using response journals through our book
selection Big Bushy Moustache by Gary Soto
and illustrated by Joe Cepeda. We reviewed the
vocabulary word, envious, as we discussed times
we wanted to be someone or have something that
did not belong to us. These are two conflicts that
happen in the story. A boy wanting to be like his
father and taking a costume moustache home
from school.

22.  Big Bushy Moustache Critical and Responsive Perspectives
 Response journals—I was envious when I wanted my friend’s_______. This
reinforced a previously taught vocabulary word and allowed students to
personally respond to the story.
 Author’s Purpose—We read an excerpt about Gary Soto using his
neighborhood to help him create his stories. The story has Spanish speaking
characters, so we discussed diversity and cultures and his purpose of
incorporating his culture into his story. We also discussed the illustrator, Joe
Cepeda, and how he illustrates himself and his family in the background of
the story too. We discussed that they are both of Latino decent.
 Molden (2007) provides a table of critical perspective questions to provoke
literacy discussions, so I used the question, “What sort of genre does this text
belong to?” Together we confirmed that it is a realistic fiction piece.
 As a family connection, I asked that families watch The Parent Trap, either
the 1961 or 1998 version. We discussed who we wished we could be for a
day and students shared their response journals with their families. Together
families can compare and contrast the movies and story and share their
envious experiences during their childhood.

23.  What insights did you gain about literacy and literacy
instruction from viewing this presentation.
 How might the information presented change your
literacy practices and/or your literacy interactions with
students?
 In what ways can I support you in the literacy
development of your students or children? How might
you support me in my work with students or your
children?
 What questions do you have?

24. • Nieto (2003) states that learning is
ongoing without end. This is instilled
into my young students’ minds and
continuing my education encourages
them, nourishes my lifelong love of
learning, and helps me become the
best teacher I can be!

25.  Afflerbach, P. (2007). Understanding and using reading assessment, k-12. Newark, DE:
International Reading Association.
 Henk, W. A., & Melnick, S. A. (1995). The reader self-perception scale (rsps): A new tool for
measuring how children feel about themselves as readers. Reading Teacher, 48(6),
470. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Changes in literacy{Webcast}. The
beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). The Beginning Reader{Webcast}.
The beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c). Getting to know your students.
Knowledge{Webcast}. The beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010d). VFE: strategic processing
{Webcast}. The beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010e). Analyzing and Selecting Text.
{Webcast}. The beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010f). Informational Text. {Webcast}. The
beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010g).Strategic processing: Interactive
perspective {Webcast}. The beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.

26.  Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010h). Critical perspective {Webcast}. The
beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.
 McKenna, M.C. & Kear, D.J. (1990, May). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new tool
for teachers. The Reading Teacher, 43 (9),j 626-639.
http://www.professorgarfield.org/parents_teachers/printables/pdfs/reading/readingsurv
ey.pdf
 Nieto, S. (2003). What keeps teachers going? New York: Teachers College Press.
 Rider, N., & Colmar, S. (n.d.). Reading achievement and reading self-concept in year 3
children. Retrieved November 18, 2008, from
http://www.aare.edu.au/05pap/col05347.pdf
 Stiggins, R. J. (2005). Student-involved assessment for learning (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
 Tompkins, G.E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon.