Literate Environment Analysis

Sara Jo Manzo
Dr. Abigayle Barton The Beginning Reader, Pre K-3 (EDUC - 6706G - 9) October 20, 2012

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR LITERACY LEARNERS

Getting to know your Literacy Learners

When determining a students educational level, we need to clearly understand what stage they are on. If the reading level is too low for your students, then they will become bored with the text. If the reading level is too high for your students, then they will be using too much of their cognitive ability with decoding and comprehending the text; therefore they will not enjoy the art of reading.

Literacy Learners Continued.

In order for your students to develop a love of reading, and begin a literate learning experience, we, as teachers, need to make sure that the text level coordinates with Their reading level.

Literacy Learners Continued

There are three stages of Literacy Development. The first stage is called the Emergent stage. The second stage is known as the Beginning stage, and the third stage is called the Fluency stage (Tompkins, 2010, pg. 118-125). Knowing which stage your learners are at will help you to create a literate-rich learning environment. Where your students can enjoy reading, at their own instructional reading level.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TEXT

Text Selection
When getting to know your students it is also important to understand them on a personal level. We need to determine what things interest our students. We can do this by determining what genre they enjoy reading, and what topics hold their attention. As teachers we need to select texts that connect to students' identities and/or interests and that have the potential to evoke an emotional or personal response, as well as, select texts that provide opportunities for students to judge, evaluate, and think critically (a Framework for Literacy Instruction. Walden, 2012).

Text Selection Continued

A good way of determining where your students interest lie is by performing a Reading Interest Inventory (Afflerbach, 2012, pg. 181). This is a tool that will help you determine which genre, subject, and format your students enjoy reading..

LITERACY LESSON: INTERACTIVE PERSPECTIVE

Literacy Lesson: Interactive Perspective

For my interactive perspective, I performed a lesson, with my group of third grade students, focusing on word recognition and comprehension. For word recognition, I wanted my students to see the value in the skill of recognizing words quickly and automatically; solving words on the run, while reading continuous text. Selfmonitoring of not only word accuracy but also of the syntax and meaning of [the] texts (Fountas & Pinnell, 2006, pg. 88).

Interactive Perspective Continued

For a comprehension activity, I wanted my students to learn the strategy of summarizing the text. I reminded them that a summary is a restatement of the important ideas in the text, it is not a retell of the whole text. I showed them how to use a story map to help them summarize the text. Students, as well as their teachers, learn new information when they interact with texts.

LITERACY LESSON: CRITICAL AND RESPONSE PERSPECTIVES

Literacy Lesson: Critical and Response Perspectives

For my critical and response perspective lesson plan, I selected a different approach to teaching my students a lesson on the issues of discrimination and jealously. I used an old, familiar text, The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss.

I wanted my students to realize that sometimes in life they may need to take a stand either for or against an opinion, [or belief], and that when faced with such decisions, they should examine the text closely before they make their stand. (Manzo, 2012).

Critical and Response Perspective Continued

For the application after reading this text, I had my students use a double-entry journal which is a special type of reading log in which the pages are divided into two columns; students [then] write different types of information in Each column (Tompkins, 2010, pg. 433-434). There are several methods of interacting and responding to text located in the Compendium of Instructional Procedures of our textbook (Tompkins, 2010, pgs. 426-481).

Conclusion
Through these four research-based practices, I have created a more in-depth literate environment. I have learned the importance of knowing my learners, effectively matching my texts to my readers, and the significance of teaching my students lessons from multiple perspectives. I have learned that students need to be doers, as well as hearers of the text. It is not enough for them just to read, they need to interact with the words on the page, they need to learn new strategies, and improve their reading skills.

Conclusion Continued
Reading is meant to be an enjoyable, relaxing, and cognitive experience. If I want my readers to access the depth of the text, I have to guide them through the different perspectives, teach them diverse practices, and allow them time to read.

References
AIMSweb Assessments (2012). Retrieved from www.aimsweb.com Afflerbach, P. (2012). Understanding and using reading assessment, K-12 (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Afflerbach, P., Pearson, D., & Paris, S. G (2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills and reading strategies. The Reading Teacher, (Vol. 61). No. 5, February. Fountas, I. C. & Pinnell, G. S. (2006). Teaching for comprehending and fluency; thinking, talking, and writing about reading, K-8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

References Continued
Manzo, S. J. (Oct 21, 2012). Power point presentation: Literate environment analysis. Retrieved from: Manzo, S. J. (Oct. 5, 2012). Application 5 Essay. For the Beginning Reader, Pre K-3 (EDUC - 6706G - 9) Principal (October 18, 2012). Answers to questionnaire. Reading interest inventories (2012). Retrieved from: http://www.st.cr.k12.ia.us/reading/readinginteresti nventoriesChoicePage.htm Seuss, Dr. (1961). The sneetches and other stories. New York: Random House.

References Continued
Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: a balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allen & Bacon. Title I (A) Teacher (October 18, 2012). Answers to questionnaire. Title I (B) Teacher (October 18, 2012). Answers to questionnaire. Walden (2012). Framework for literacy instruction. Retrieved from: https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frames et.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2FFwebapp% 2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3 DCourse%26id%3D_1374137_1%26url%3D (Week 2).

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