Getting to Know Literacy Learners How teachers, students, and parents can gain more than just words from text.

Analysis of Getting to Know your Learners Motivation is the heart of getting to know your learners. “Motivation is intrinsic, the innate curiosity that makes us want to figure things out” (Tompkins, 2010, p. 277). Teachers need to know their learners abilities, but also what motivates and interests their students. Getting to know your learners assists in motivating students to read and write. The more students engage in these skills with purpose, the better they become.

Research Supporting Getting to Know Your Learners Use of an interest survey is one method used in first grade to gather information about students. This survey asks student to generate topics they would like to read about and think about types of text they like. This is generally a teacher created survey, but could be a pre-created survey. Small (n.d) presents one such interest survey on Pinterest, but a variety of these tools are available or easily created. Use of an attitude survey is another useful tool. This tool can help teachers to see how students view themselves as readers (McKenna and Kear, 1990) thus allowing teachers to focus on strengths and fill in reading incompetency.

Selecting Texts Many parents, students, and teachers are familiar with the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In this story, an intrepid and bold young girl ventures into a temporarily abandoned home of three bears. There, she tires out a chair, bed, and porridge looking for a good fit for each. She describes why certain chairs are not to her liking describing them as too hard or too soft. Much like Goldilocks, young readers approach books that are too hard, too easy, or a good fit. But for many parents, students, and even teachers, being unaware of the metacognitive demands that invoke a good fit book may be unknown or overlooked.

Analysis for Selecting Texts Key components for selecting text vary based upon how the test is used. If student are reading the text, reading level, schema, interest are all factors. As a teacher shares a read aloud with students, factors include students schema for the story, vocabulary addressed in the story, and an idea of how the story may connect with students learning.

Research for Selecting Text When selecting a text, Almasi (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d. a) presents a matrix for teachers to use as a visual way to evaluate text. Along one axis is the idea of whether a text is fiction or non-fiction. The perpendicular axis addresses how readers gain information; either through pictures or words. Hartman (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d. b) adds a third axis where complexity of sentence structure and text are addressed. Use of this matrix allows teachers to choose a healthy balance of text for students to learn from.

Interactive Perspective In the interactive perspective, students are asked to interact with the text they are engaged in. Assessments are used to assess fluency, accuracy, and comprehension of texts.

Analysis of Interactive Perspective Use of appropriate texts promotes students to independently monitor and apply strategies in their reading. In the classroom, student assist in creating strategy charts to encourage them to problem solve at point of difficulty with more than just sounding out words.

Research for Interactive Perspective Tomkins (2010, p. 41) states that “meaning doesn’t exist on the pages of a book; instead comprehension is created through the interaction between readers and the text they’re reading”. The interaction is what drives good readers to be great readers. When students interact with a text, they connect with it on a personal level.

Critical and Reflective Perspectives In the critical and reflective perspectives, students are asked to evaluate concepts, make judgments, react to a a text and formulate responses based upon those reactions. As adults, this is often something that has been so long practiced it has become internalized. When working with young children, we need to voice these internal thoughts to model our thoughts about the texts we read.

Analysis of Critical and Reflective Perspectives This is a weak part of my current instruction that I have been working on developing though use of the information presented in my current online coursework. In the future, I plan to increase instructional methods that encourage my students to use deep comprehension to get into the mind set that questions

Research supporting Critical and Reflective Perspectives Routman (2003, p. 118) states, “if we want readers to be critical thinkers, inquirers, and problem solvers, we need to introduce them to challenging, interesting texts” and “show them how to process these texts”. Finding an appropriate text is the first step, modeling how to process text is the second, and allowing student to process independently is the third step to create critical and reflective readers.

Feedback Your feedback and questions are always welcomed. Please feel free to me at or call at x57201 I would love to know: 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?

References Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d. a). Analyzing and selecting text [Video file]. Retrieved from webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype %3DCourse%26id%3D_ _1%26url%3D Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d. b). Informational text in the early years. [Video file]. Retrieved from ecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_ _1%26url%3D McKenna, M. C., & Kear, D. J. (1990). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new tool for teachers. The Reading Teacher, 43(9), Routman, R. (2003). Reading essentials: The specifics you need to teach reading well. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH. Small, E. (n.d) Interest survey. Retrieved from Tompkins, G.E. (2010). Literacy for the 21 st century: A balanced approach. Pearson Custom Publishing. New York, NY.