Literacy Development

Presented by:

Ms. Nichole Rueda

Getting to Know Literacy LearnersImproving Literacy Development

• Cognitive Assessments (i.e. DRA scores, running records, formal assessments, etc.) are typically the starting point for most teachers on the road to improving literacy development with their students.

• These assessments allow teachers to assess where students are developmentally, therefore allowing teachers to select texts that are reading level appropriate for their students.

• However, one of the most important aspects of improving literacy development for all students begins with learning about your students. What sparks their curiosity? What engages them in reading? What are their interests? What is important to them? What are their attitudes about reading? Do they enjoy reading for pleasure?

• By finding out this personal information about our students, teachers are able to select texts that are not only developmentally appropriate but more importantly engaging, relatable, and important to our students. In turn, our students want to actively participate in reading and can cognitively engage, reflect, think critically, and connect to the text.

• How do we find out this information about our students?

Non-Cognitive Assessments

• Non-cognitive assessments are informal, survey like assessments that ask students questions about their feelings and attitudes about reading as well as various questions to tap into their interests.

• Elementary Reading Attitude Test: (McKenna, 1990)

Put to the Test:

• Four students were assessed both cognitively and non-cognitively to increase their literacy development.

• Students were initially selected based on their DRA scores (cognitive assessment) from the previous school year. The four lowest scores were selected and retested using DRA assessment.

• DRA assessments allow teachers to test reading performance based on fluency, comprehension, and higher order thinking skills. The assessments also allows students to analyze miscues in order to plan for strategies to decode words. Data attained allows teacher and students to select books in their independent reading range so that the books they select can be read with at least 95% accuracy.

• Cognitive assessment in simply not enough. What good are books in their independent reading range if the student is not interested or engaged in what they are reading? Will they even be reading? This is where non-cognitive assessment comes in.

• The same four students were also given the Elementary Reading Attitude Test. This survey would allow me to understand how students perceive reading in school and for pleasure. I would learn how students feel about reading on their free time, reading to learn, reading out lout, how they find information from books, and how they feel about the way they comprehend books. Additionally, this survey would provide me with their thoughts on what kinds of book they like to read, what books they would like to read most, and what types of books would encourage their reading for pleasure (McKenna, 1990).

• With this information, I can now select books on their level according to their interests.

Data Collected:

• Two out of five of the students are reading at a second grade level while they are currently in the fourth grade.

• Two out of five students are reading at a third grade level.

• One of the five students reading at a second grade level had several visual miscues. Words looked similar, however they did not have similar meaning and he was not using decoding phonics skills to figure out words. Furthermore, even though the word did not make sense he would continue reading without stopping.

• Three out of five of the students do not do much recreational reading. Most of their reading is done in school. I sat down to conference with them individually about the results to find that their parents do not read to them at home and do not require them to spend some time reading after school or on the weekends. Most of them watch television immediately after completing their homework for the remainder of the night.

• Three out of five students felt that the books we are required to read in school are not entertaining, however they do not feel any reading anxieties when asked to read aloud or answer questions.

• One out of five students love to read recreationally and does enjoy reading in school. Furthermore, she does feel confident answering questions and discussing questions, however she does not feel confident putting these ideas down on paper because she does not enjoy writing.

Next Steps:

• Data will guide my instruction for small group guided reading. Because I have a better handle on their interests and their reading habits at home, I am able to plan small group instruction accordingly. I know I have to include books of high interest in order to keep their motivation to read.

• At home reading activities will be introduced to encourage reading at home.

• Writing block will be utilized as a choice of topic writing based on their interests rather than assigning writing prompts. Students can use the computers and library to research their topics which would incorporate reading based on their interests because the topics are chosen by the student.

• I will conduct running records using books we have selected to read during guided reading to monitor decoding skills and fluency.

• Students will keep individual spelling lists to improve word recognition of fourth grade high frequency words.

• Intervention strategies will be applied to student with difficulty decoding. Intervention will focus on his decoding skills as well as making him aware of comprehending while reading so that the student pays attention to when his miscues no longer allow what is being read to make sense.

Small Group Text Selection

To ensure students are reading a variety of books, a literacy matrix can be used to guide text selection. The first thing to consider is whether a text is narrative or informational or where along the continuum a book may fall between. The next thing to consider is whether the book is linguistic (word oriented) or semiotic (pictures, icons, etc.) or somewhere in between along that continuum. A text will fall somewhere along these quadrants. This ensures that you are differentiating the types of texts (Laureate Education, n.d.a).

Small Group Text Selection

• Considering the literacy matrix, my students are exposed to narrative/linguistic text every day in whole group. For this reason, I selected information texts as my focus for instruction with the group of students I was working with.

• Considering additional data based on how students attack informational texts, these students are also in need of exposure to a variety of informational text structures and text features in order to understand how to manipulate and unpack informational texts.

• I used Scholastic Storyworks to provide rigorous, common core reading material for small group guided reading instruction. These texts would fall in the information/linguistic quadrant. It would also include semiotic details because informational texts include illustrations, pictures, graphs, and diagrams.

Guided Reading Texts and Objectives• The Volcano That Changed the World written by Lauren Tarshis: The article includes linguistic

and semiotic text. Students were able to access this article online while reading along to the audio provided on www.scholastic.com/storyworks. Objectives focused on cause and effect text structure, critical thinking questions, text evidence, drawing conclusions, summarizing, and evaluating by rereading and citing the text (Tarshish, 2014).

• Talen’s Got Talent paired with The Incredible Powers of Speech by Jane Bionchi: The articles fall in the matrix quadrants of informational/linguistic and informational/semiotic. The objective focused on synthesizing two different texts, critical thinking questions, and making inferences (Bianchi, 2014).

• Silverman City by Jenny Nimmo: On the matrix this story falls in narrative/linguistic and narrative/semiotic as there are many illustrations that go along with the story. The text objective focused on problem and solution, identifying figurative language, identifying main idea, compare and contrast, and author’s purpose, and providing text evidence by citing the text (Nimmo, 2014).

• All three texts relate to my students at a non-cognitive level because they are relatable, involve subjects that interest them, and are real world problems that they encounter in their own lives (science, animals, communication impediments, bullying). Engaging students at a non-cognitive level allows students to emotionally engage and make personal connections to comprehend the texts.

Working with the Text

When planning for literacy instruction, three components must be considered: the students (learners), the texts we are using, and our instructional practices as teachers. There are then three perspectives to consider for students to work with the text: interactive (how to read), critical (judging and evaluating the text), and response (respond and connect to the text) (Laureate Education Inc., n.d.d).

Interactive Perspective

• The interactive perspective involves teaching students how to attack a text so that they are successful in comprehending what they have read. Teaching students strategies to decode and become aware of text structure and it’s purpose allows students to become strategic processors. This includes knowing strategies to decode words within the text and understanding text structure to comprehend a text (Laureate Education Inc., n.d.c).

• To incorporate the interactive perspective into a small group reading lesson, I used a non-fiction text from Scholastic News called Great White Comeback. The purpose for reading was to make predictions, identify text structure, activate schema using a vocabulary activity, and participate in a word sort activity. Students understand that they are reading an informational and have strategies to unpack that text (identifying text structure/non-fiction text features/scanning text).

• Students were able to read independently and figure out ways to comprehend the text if they came across a difficult word or phrase by using the interactive vocabulary tabs or the audio to sound out words and using chunking and sounding out in order to figure out words.

• There were also many opportunities provided for students to make predictions and use pictures along with visualization in order to comprehend what they were reading. These reading strategies allowed my students to use their metacognitive awareness while they are reading.

Interactive Perspective Data

• The data suggested that four out of five of my students were successful in reading the informational text independently without much guided support.

• Student one, who reads at a DRA 16, relied much more on the audio interactive aspect of the website. With this support, the student was able to make predictions, answer critical thinking questions, and discuss the text with the rest of the group.

• Five out of five students were highly interested in and were very engaged in the text selection. Students made viable predictions using the text and nonfiction text features, were able to answer cause and effect questions, read rigorous text while self-monitoring their progress and comprehension by sounding out, chunking, and recognizing high frequency words and vocabulary words introduced in the pre-reading activity.

• At the end of the reading, students were also able to create five different word sorts using the student generated list of shark words as well as the new vocabulary introduced. Students created their own categories and selected words from the lists to sort those words into appropriate categories. This activity allowed students to look more closely at these words and think more deeply about them.

Critical Perspective

• The critical perspective involves giving each student the opportunity to judge, evaluate, analyze, and think critically about the text they are reading in order to gain a deeper understanding about what they are reading. Students must have experience with the critical perspective to understand that texts have multiple points of views and perspectives so that they can successfully analyze the text (Laureate Education Inc., n.d.b)

• Text selection is very important when keeping the critical perspective in mind. Texts selected should be on subjects that are important to the reader. Text should also be giving students opportunities to see different view points and to think critically beyond what is read in the text.

Response Perspective

• The response perspective allows students to be personally and emotionally affected by the text they are reading. This perspective gives opportunities for students to be changed by a text because they are moved by what they are reading.

• Text selection is very important when keeping the response perspective in mind. Texts selected should be on subjects that are important to the reader so that they will be emotionally moved.

• The teacher must also give students the opportunity to think, discuss, connect, react, and respond to what they have read (Laureate Education Inc., n.d.e)

Critical and Response Perspectives

• To incorporate the critical and response perspectives in a small group guided reading lesson, I used the text Silverman City. This text was about a boy who is being bullied in school and two characters who come into his life and defend him. The subject of bullying is something that all the students can personally and emotionally respond to because it is an issue that goes on in their world. The story can also be seen and told from multiple viewpoints from the different characters allowing my students to think critically (Nimmo, 2014).

• The objectives for the guided reading lesson were to make predictions and inferences, identify character traits, understanding characters feelings, and identifying problem and solution.

• Students discussed their personally experiences with bullying, make inferences about characters feelings, and make predictions about the story.

• Students use reader’s response journals to respond to the feeling evoked from the story, personal experiences that are similar or different to the story, which characters they most relate to and why, and comparing and contrasting different characters in the story.

• In closure, students responded in reader’s response journals to why the author included fictitious details to a real world issue in the story.

Critical and Response Perspective Data

• Five of five students actively participated in the activity by writing down feelings, thoughts, or experiences regarding the issue. Students were given ample time to think and respond personally and emotionally.

• Five of five students personally related to this issue and therefore the text allowed them to metacognitively engage, critically respond, and emotionally connect to the text.

• Five of five students made viable predictions, answered questions about problem and solution, compared and contrasted different characters and their actions, identified character traits and found textual evidence to support their answers.

• Five of five students understood character’s feelings and intent within the story.

• Five of five students considered their reader-author relationship by considering why the author would write the text. Additionally it allowed students to think about how the author wrote the story to see things a certain way (Molden, 2007).

• Five of five students were able to tell the story from a different character’s points of view.

Feedback

• Thank you for viewing my presentation on Literacy Development. Your thoughts and feedback is very important to me. Please take a moment to answer the following questions:

• 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 (or your child)?

• 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?

References:

Bianchi, J. (2014) The incredible powers of speech. September Scholastic Storyworks. Retrieved from www.scholastic.com/storyworksLaureate Education (Producer). (n.d.a). Analyzing and selecting text [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.eduLaureate Education (Producer). (n.d.b). Critical perspective. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.eduLaureate Education (Producer). (n.d.c). Interactive perspective: Strategic processing. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.eduLaureate Education (Producer). (n.d.d). Perspectives on literacy learning. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.eduLaureate Education (Producer). (n.d.e). Response perspective. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.eduMcKenna, M. C., & Kear, D. J. (1990). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new tool for teachers. The Reading Teacher, 43(9), 626--639.Molden, K. (2007). Critical literacy, the right answer for the reading classroom: Strategies to move beyond comprehension for reading improvement. Reading Improvement, 44(1), 50–56.

Nimmo, J. (2014) Silverman cilty. September Scholastic Storyworks, pp 15-20

Tarshish, L. (2014) Talen’s got talent. September Scholastic Storyworks. Retrieved from www.scholastic.com/storyworks