LITERATE ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

Sheila OnealEDUC 6706R-3April 2014

Walden University Gina Pink

Literacy Environment FrameworkFramework for Literacy Instruction:

(3 things we need to pay attention to)• The Learners (Students themselves)

A. What do we need to know about our students

B. Cognitive Assessments

C. Non-cognitive Assessments

• Selection of Texts

A. What do we need to understand about how text are put together

B. Literacy Matrix

• Instructional Practices (Ourselves and the Instructional Context

A. Most important goal= fidelity to the

students

B. Make critical decisions on their behalf

GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERSAssessments that help us understand and appreciate the diverse growth that students experience and

the reading challenges that they face must be a priority in each classroom.

• Running Records• Reading Inventories• Dynamic Indicators of

Basic Early Literacy (DIBELS)

• Concepts About Print

• Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS)

• Interest Inventories• Me Stew

Cognitive Assessments provides teachers with the ability to understand each student’s growth and challenges as a reader (Afflerbach, 2012).

Non-Cognitive Assessments focus on students’ motivation to read, self-concept, attitude toward reading, and how they feel about themselves as readers (Afflerbach, 2012).

NON-COGNITIVE ASSESSMENTSCOGNITIVE ASSESSMENTS

Reading Inventories provide us with the means to assess and evaluate many of these diverse aspects of students’ reading performance and growth (Afflerbach, 2012).

COGNITIVE ASSESSMENTS

NON-COGNITIVE ASSESSMENTS

GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS

(Continued)

I chose to use Concepts About Print (Clay,2006) to assess where my students were cognitively. The questions that I was looking to be answered were:• Do they know where to turn for the

first page of the story?• Do they know the direction of print

across a line of text? • Can they point to track words as

the teacher reads aloud?

I chose to use the assessment ERAS (Elementary Reading Attitude Survey)to assess my students non-cognitive abilities. The questions that I was looking to be answered were:• How do you feel when you read

a book on a rainy Saturday?• How do you feel about getting a

book for a present?• How do you feel about reading

instead of playing?

The better you know your students, the better you can connect them with text that will impact them in profound ways (Laureate Education, 2011).

COGNITIVE ASSESSMENTSConcepts about print (CAP),(Clay, 2006) test assessed three types of concepts about print:• book orientation• directionality concepts• letter and word conceptsThis test has 24 items and is assessed individually in about 10 minutes. I read a short book aloud while the child looks on. The child is then asked to open the book, turn pages, and point out particular print features as the text is read. I chose a first grade level text to administer the CAP test to my students. All three students scored well on the majority of the test. I did notice that two of the three had difficulty with letter and word concepts. When asked questions pertaining to sentence structure, I noticed that they were just randomly pointing at words. This led me to believe that this may be the reason to why they are experiencing comprehension difficulty. Cognitively, the three have shown that they are familiar with written text. They know the orientation and directional concepts but are showing that they may have letter and word concept problems. Their non-cognitive skills may not be being addressed at home. They need someone reading aloud to them daily to model reading. They need to know where a sentence begins and where it ends to be able to comprehend the text being read. Basically, these students need as much outside exposure into the world as possible. Role playing, writing and familiarizing themselves with their environment would be of tremendous help for these students.

GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS (Continued)

NON-COGNITIVE ASSESSMENTS:The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS),(McKenna & Kear, 1990) test assesses first- through sixth-grade students’ attitudes toward reading at home and at school. The 20 items begin with the stem “How do you feel….” and students mark one of four pictures of Garfield, the cartoon cat; each picture depicts a different emotional state, ranging from positive to negative. This survey enabled me to quickly estimate my students'’ abilities. My students did not show that they read for recreational purposes at all. When asked if how they felt about reading a book on a rainy Saturday, all three replied that they did not like doing reading on a Saturday whether it was raining or not. On the academic scale, the three were somewhat better. Two of the three said they enjoy hearing the textbooks being read aloud but just not for them to read them aloud to the class. By discovering this, I found that the students need to be modeled reading aloud as often as possible. They also should be encouraged to read to themselves as much as possible. Paired reading with their peers have proved to be successful for the group also. One student has a tremendous vocabulary deficit, so I am trying to find other means to encourage this student before I dive into reading aloud and eventually independent reading for this student. I have found that this students parent is little or no help when trying to encourage literacy skills. He lives with his mom and two other siblings. The mother works two jobs while the children are often passed from family member to member.

GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS (Continued)

SELECTING TEXTSLINGUISTIC

SEMIOTIC

NARRATIVE INFORMATIONAL

One useful tool teachers can use when analyzing and selecting text in Literacy Matrix (2011). It assists in Instructional Decision Making for your students, and making connections across the curriculum (Laureate Education, 2011).

The Literacy Matrix helped me to balance my text selection.

Text selected should be engaging and based on students’ needs and interest. There should be a balance of narrative text and informational text. Using informational text in the early years can help students to build background knowledge and avoid the “4th grade slump” (Laureate Education, 2011).

What matters most is that teachers know their students well so that they can adapt the components in their instructional program to ensure that all students succeed

( Tompkins,2010).

SELECTING TEXTS (continued)

While selecting texts, focus on:• Readability• Length• Background

knowledge• Student interest

Selecting Texts: Considerations“Using computers increases students’ motivation to read, write, and learn. Stories on the web build students’ understanding of story structures and introduces new opportunities to develop online navigational skills” (Castek, 2006).

I selected the following texts to supplement a unit on Animal Adaptations:1. When I Lived With Bats by Faith

McNulty2. Wonderful Worms by Linda Glaser

http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/nature.html

3. Claws, Coats, and Camouflage: The Ways Animals Fit into Their World by Susan EE. Goodman

LITERACY LESSON: INTERACTIVE PERSPECTIVE• The ultimate goal of the

Interactive Perspective is to teach children to be literate learners who can navigate through a text independently (Laureate Education, 2010).

• Use schema as a strategy for comprehension

• Use instructional strategies that address the needs of students and the demands of the text

( Laureate Education, 2011).

Learning objective: The students were asked to identify the basic needs and specific physical characteristics of animals and to investigate how weather and seasonal changes affect animals. Texts: 1. When I Lived With Bats by Faith

McNulty2. Wonderful Worms by Linda Glaser

http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/nature.html

The shared reading lesson compared Earthworms and Bats habitats. The group conducted an experiment with Earthworms by providing an Earthworm four different types of soil. The group observed as the Earthworm decided on the type of soil it preferred. The group then discussed it’s findings.

(continued)

• These practices allowed me to focus on making meaning from the text by making connections into their own lives. Using schema is a good strategy for understanding text (Laureate Education, 2010).• The purpose was made clear at the beginning of the lesson. The group sorted picture cards according to what animals need/do not need to survive. The group and I then discussed their findings about the animals needs. The lesson then moved to the comparison of the Earthworm and the Bat habitats through text about each.

LITERACY LESSON:CRITICAL AND RESPONSE PERSPECTIVES• The Critical Perspective allows students to examine a text critically and think

more deeply about what they are reading (Laureate Education, 2010).• The Response Perspective allows students to make meaningful connections to

text (Laureate Education, 2010).

• The purpose of this lesson was to give the emergent readers the opportunity to evaluate and think critically about the narrative texts, When I lived With Bats and Wonderful Worms. The practice helped me create a literate environment by giving my students time to think about the habitats of the two animals.

• The Critical Perspective gave the students the opportunity to observe the Earthworms choice of soil and draw inferences as to why he chose the soil.

• The Response Perspective gave the students a chance to write their personal responses to the animals habitats.

It is important to engage our students in reading and writing to discover what they have to say because the more they write about what they read, the more they will understand what they

read (Laureate Education, 2010).

REFERENCES:Afflerbach, P. (2012). Understanding and using reading assessment, K-12 (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Glaser, L., & Krupinski, L. (1992). Wonderful worms. Brookfield, Conn: Millbrook Press.

Goodman, S. E., & Doolittle, M. J. (2001). Claws, coats, and camouflage: The ways animals fit into their world. Brookfield, Conn: Millbrook Press.

McKenna, M. C., & Kear, D. J. (1990). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new tool for teachers. Reading Teacher, 43(9), 626-639.

McNulty, F., & Shiffman, L. (1998). When I lived with bats. New York: Scholastic.

PBSkids. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/nature.html

Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.