Literate Environment Analysis

1. Professor Pam Fitzgerald
EDUC-6706R-2 The Beginning Reader, PreK-3

2. Literate Environment Analysis
Getting to Know Literacy Learners
Selecting Texts
Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective
Literacy Lesson: Critical and Responsive Perspectives

3. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
In order to create a successful literate environment
teachers need to get to know their students
(Tompkins, 2010).
Teachers need to become familiar with their students’
literacy experiences and what their development is as
a literacy being.
This research based practice helped me to select
appropriate text and develop meaningful lesson plans.

4. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
(Continued)
I chose two research based practices to help gather
data about three individual literacy learners. I
assessed three elementary school students.
They ranged in ages 6-8, they were all girls and two
were 2nd
graders and one was a first grader. I chose a
cognitive and non-cognitive activity.
Cognitive- assesses the students comprehension
Non cognitive- assesses the students attitude
toward learning

5. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
(Continued)
For the non-cognitive
activity I selected the
Elementary Reading
Attitude Survey
( McKenna and Kear,
1990).
Based on the data from
the ERAS, I concluded that
the students did not like to
read for recreational
purposes.
 For the cognitive I used a
writing assessment tool
with a rubric.
Based on the data from
the writing the students
were able to write story
summaries.

6. Getting to Know Literacy Learners
(Continued)
The information I obtained from the assessments
helped guide my selection of appropriate text for the
students. I learned that my students needed
motivation to read text.
The purpose of getting to know your students is to
assess motivation in reading and to help the teacher
develop engaging lessons (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling
& Mazzoni, 1996).
All in all teachers need to get to know their literacy
learners because it builds community and helps them
to feels special.

7. Selecting Text
Selecting text can be a very challenging process for
teachers.
Teachers need to consider their goals for their
students when making text selections.
Dr. Hartman discussed various considerations for
evaluating text (Laureate Education, n.d.a).
He said teachers need to use the literacy matrix for
making text selections.

8. Selecting text(Continued)
Literacy Matrix
Narrative- Tells a story
Informational- Gives information
Linguistic- Word orient and tells a story
Semiotic-Wordless and delivers words in different ways.
The literacy matrix is used to ensure teachers use a
balance of text in their classroom(Laureate Education,
n.d.a)

9. Selecting Text (Continued)
Literacy Matrix Example

10. Selecting Text(Continued)
The information I obtained from the researched
based practice helped guide my selection of
appropriate texts for the students.
I chose a text that the supported the students needs
and met their literacy interest.
 Based on the data my students needed a familiar text
to help increase motivation and academic
achievement.
Tompkins (2010) stated that the more a student
knows about a text or topic the easier it is to learn
new information.

11. Literacy Lesson: Interactive
Perspective
Interactive Perspective
The goal of the interactive perspective is to teach
students to be literate learners who can navigate text
independently (Laureate Education, n.d.c).
According to Dr. Almasi students need to use
strategic processing when reading and writing to
become metacognitive (Laureate Education, n.d.c).
Once a student becomes metacognitive they will learn
how to self monitor and correct their reading and
writing independently.

12. Literacy Lesson: Interactive
Processing (Continued)
Lesson Plan
 I developed a reading comprehension lesson using strategic processing.
 The text I selected was Cinderella (Coen,2005). Cinderella is a familiar text.
 In the beginning of the lesson I promoted the students strategic processing and
metacognition by activating their prior knowledge.
 During the comprehension lesson, I built the students background knowledge by
activating prior knowledge and background information about the text (Tompkins,
2010).
 After reading the story, students were able to demonstrate their metacognition by
answering questions from the text and completing a story summary.
 Research shows when teachers use retelling and questioning around story
structure it increases listening comprehension ( Stahl,2004).

13. Literacy Lesson: Critical and
Response Perspectives
The purpose of the critical and response
perspectives are to provide different ways for
students to think about text and to respond to it.
The critical perspective helps students analyze and
evaluate the text (Laureate Education, n.d.b).
The response perspective enables students to
connect personally and emotionally (Laureate
Education, n.d.c).
Both perspectives provide ways for students to think
about the text critically and respond to it using their
own thoughts and feelings.

14. Literacy Lesson: Critical and
Response Perspectives (Continued)
Literacy Lesson
I developed a shared reading lesson in response to the
critical and responsive perspectives. The lesson was on a
familiar text Cinderella (Coen,2005).
To meet critical perspective, I chose The Persian Cinderella
(Climo, 1999). The Persian Cinderella is a diverse version of
Cinderella it takes place in a different culture and country.
Dr. Almasi (Laureate Education, n.d.b) said that students
should read books from different perspectives (set in
another country) because it helps them to think critically.

15. Literacy Lesson: Critical and
Response Perspectives (Continued)
To reinforce the response perspective I added
stopping points to the lesson to allow the students the
ability to think critically and respond. Dr. Almasi said
that helping them to utilize the response perspective
will help them to personally connect and become
better people (Laureate Education, n.d.d).
Having students using the critical and response
perspectives gave the students a chance to read the
text with a world view.

16. References
Climo, S. (1999) The Persian Cinderella. New York,NY: Harper Collins.
Coen, F. (2005 ) Cinderella. Columbus,Ohio : McGraw-Hill
Gambrell, L.B., Palmer,B.M., Codling, R.M.,& Mazzoni,S.A. (1996). Assessing motivation to read. The Reading Teacher,49(7),518-533.
McKenna, M. C., & Kear, D. J. (1990). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new tool for teachers. Reading Teacher, 43(9), 626–639.
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.a). Assessing writing development. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.b). Critical perspective. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.c). Perspectives on early literacy. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.d). Response perspective. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Stahl,K.A.D.(2004). Proof, practice and promise: Comprehension strategy instruction in the primary grades. Reading
Teacher,57(7),598-608.
Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon