Literate Environment Analysis Presentation By: Mary Amdal Walden University The Beginning Reader, Pre K-3 (EDUC G - 4) Instructor: Dr. Martha Moore

 Effective teachers do not just educate students, but really get to know the students on a personal level.  Dr. Almasi states, it is our job as teachers to make sure that we have our students best interests at heart and make decisions that are going to help our students to succeed and be successful readers, writers, thinkers, speakers, and visionaries (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009b).

 This means spending time with them in and outside of school to better understand them as well as gaining information in their interests, background knowledge and life experiences.  Students need to feel that that they can trust us and know that we as teachers have their best interests at heart.  For example, go to their Christmas Programs, soccer games, little league baseball, community plays or even go skating with them on skate night.  The students love it! The students realize that you care very deeply about them and they begin to open up to you and this trust soon builds respect.

Students love it, when you spend time out on the play ground with them, This helps build trust. (Figure 7) Spending quality time with your up coming students at a church event gives you an opportunity to get to know them on a more personal level. (Figure 8) Field trips provide us with insight to background knowledge and personal experiences. ( Figure 9) Making connections to parents is a crucial element in a student’s life. Keeping parents involved and informed are key elements in helping students to become more successful in and outside of school. (Figure 10 )

 Once the level of trust is built with the students, the learning can begin.  Reading does not just happen in kindergarten, but needs to be nurtured and developed. There are many steps that have to be taken before the reading process can begin. Students must first learn the letters of the alphabet and their letter sounds. Once this has developed, we begin to work on blending these sounds to become words. The students have to have an understanding what words are and that they carry a meaning before true reading habits can begin. Teachers have to create situations where students want to read.  As a teacher “learning to read and write is critical to a child’s in school and later in life and one of the best predictors of whether a child will function competently in school and go on to contribute actively in our increasingly literate society is the level to which child progresses in reading and writing” (National Association for the Education of young children, July 1998, p. 1).

 Not only is it important to know the students’ interests, backgrounds and prior experiences to provide them with meaningful ways to connect to the text, but no matter what I am teaching in reading, I always try to provide a balance of informational nonfiction, fiction or realistic fiction books in my lessons. Also, “many experts agree that by including a wide variety of books with equal emphasis given to informational texts a smoother transition may occur between the stages of elementary school reading and intermediate-level content reading” (Stephens, 2008, p. 488). My classroom library has a great deal of early reader books that focus on content area learning. I try to find books that use simple and repetitive text to teach my students basic vocabulary or pattern books with the use of picture rebuses to help jump start my lower readers. In addition, I include picture dictionaries, National Geographic books and magazines “that provides a showcase of crisp and colorful illustrations and photographs which should be an attention-grabber and spark inquisitiveness in almost every reader” (Stephens, 2008, p. 488).

 Dr. Hartman’s theory was to plot the books according to the matrix in order to insure equal distribution of the different types of texts being used in the classroom.  He believed it would help the teachers to see if the students were getting a balance between informational and fictional texts. Although “research has clearly established that no one method is superior for all children, approaches that favor some type of systematic code instruction along with meaningful connected reading report children’s superior progress in reading” (National Association for the Education of young children, 1998, p. 6) Linguistic Semiotic InformationalNarrative (More Word Oriented) (Mostly Picture-Based) (Text based books on real facts and information - Nonfiction) (Text based on sequence of events. Sometimes are stories or tales and are usually Realistic Fiction/Fiction)

Interactive Perspective  The interactive perspective focuses on how to teach the students to read. In this area, I cover many different strategies. The students review and learn how their vocabulary builds on their schema and newly introduced information. I also use a variety of other reading strategies that focus on how the story is organized, the use of think alouds and wonderings and setting a purpose for the reading of the text in order to help the students to make sense of the text (Laureate Education, Inc. 2010).

Critical Perspective  The critical perspective helps teach children how to meaningfully examine the text (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009c). We talk about the author, illustrator and publisher. This is usually discussed when we turn to the title page and the students are actively engaged in this process by identifying each of these three elements. When prompted, the students will identify who wrote the text, who did the illustrations along with how the book became published. We go over these details on almost every book and before long the students have a deeper understanding of how the text came to be. We also talk about things like why the author wrote the story. For example, was it written for entertainment or to teach us something, or was there a moral to this story.

Response Perspective  The reader’s lived experiences are of primary importance.  The response perspective requires the students to respond to “question answering and question answering instruction, it can lead to improved memory for what is read, improvement in finding information in text, and deeper processing of text” (Stahl, 2004, p. 600). There are many opportunities along with using a variety of different techniques that the students play an active role in responding to the literature. The students make predictions about the cover and as we read the story, they are encouraged to ask questions and take part in the retelling of the story using their own words. In addition, “recent studies have found that the most effective reading teachers encourage high-level responses through questioning and verbal scaffolding, whether as part of a Directed Reading – Thinking Activity (DR-TA) or another form of text interaction” (Stahl, 2004, p. 606).

 Being an effective teacher, means to use a variety of “instructional methods that address the cognitive and affective needs of students and the demands of the particular text that promotes students’ independent use of reading strategies and skills” (Laureate Education, Inc. 2011). Not only is it important to use the literacy matrix, but equally vital to combine technology into our reading strategies to help promote literate learners who can navigate the textual world independently (Laureate Education, Inc. 2010). See figures 1-6 below: Listening Center (Figure 1) Working with partners Sight Word Cards (Figure 2) Reading Independently Nonfiction and fiction stories ( Figure 3) Writing Center (Figure 4) Building reading skills through the use of technology. Also, can incorporate differentiated reading needs. (Figure 6)

 Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Analyzing and selecting texts [Webcast]. The beginning reader, PreK–3. Baltimore, MD: Author.  Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009b). Changes in literacy education [Webcast]. The beginning reader, PreK–3. Baltimore, MD: Author.  Laureate Education, Inc., (Executive Producer). (2011). Framework for Literacy Instruction [Course Document]. The beginning reader, PreK-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.  Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Interactive perspective: strategic processing [Webcast]. The beginning reader, PreK–3. Baltimore, MD: Author.  Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009c). Perspectives on literacy learning [Webcast]. The beginning reader, PreK–3. Baltimore, MD: Author.  National Association for the Education of Young Children. (1998). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for young children. Washington, DC: Author.  Stahl, K. A. D. (2004). Proof, practice, and promise: Comprehension strategy instruction in the primary grades. Reading Teacher, 57(7), 598–608.  Stephens, K. E. (2008). A quick guide to selecting great informational books for young children. Reading Teacher, 61(6), 488–490.