Literate Environment Analysis
Presentation
By: Mary Amdal
Walden University
The Beginning Reader, Pre K-3 (EDUC - 6706G - 4)
Instructor: Dr. Martha Moore
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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).
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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)
Field trips provide us with insight to
background knowledge and personal
experiences. ( Figure 9)
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)
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 )
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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).
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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).
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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
(More Word Oriented)
Narrative
Informational
(Text based on sequence of events.
(Text based books on real facts
Sometimes are stories or tales and
and information - Nonfiction)
are usually Realistic Fiction/Fiction)
Semiotic
(Mostly Picture-Based)
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).
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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:
Writing Center
(Figure 4)
Working with partners
Sight Word Cards
(Figure 2)
Listening Center
(Figure 1)
Reading Independently
Nonfiction and fiction stories
( Figure 3)
Building reading skills through
the use of technology. Also, can
incorporate differentiated
reading needs . (Figure 6)
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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.