By Carolina Seibel

Walden University

EDUC-6706R-4

The Beginning Reader, PreK-3

Dr. Denise Love

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

Linguistic

Literacy MatrixNarrative Informational

Semiotic(pictures)

Readabilility

• Linguistic

Narrative Informational

Semiotic (pictures)

Readabilility

Insects by Illa PodendorfLocus Pocus! A book to bug you

By Douglas McKelvey

Sophie’s Masterpiece by E. Spinelli

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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%.

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).

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.

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.

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?

• 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!

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International Reading Association.

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measuring how children feel about themselves as readers. Reading Teacher, 48(6),

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The beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.

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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.

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beginning reader, Pre-K-3. Baltimore, MD: Author.

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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

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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 &

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