3. A BALANCED APPROACH
• Creating a literate learning environment takes a thoughtful, balanced
approach.
• 21st century classrooms/communities
• Students share in the responsibly for their learning
• Roles of the teacher
• A balanced literacy environment would include
• “explicit instruction with authentic application
• integrated reading and writing
• teaching with trade books as well as textbooks
• combining instructional approaches,
• incorporating new technologies into literacy instruction
• differentiating instruction so every student can succeed
• linking assessment and instruction.” (Tompkins 2010 p. 1)

4. GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS P-3
• Assessing literacy skills can be a valuable way to collect data on a student’s
progress.
• Evaluating data from each assessment and using it to craft future instruction
is an important part of creating a balanced and meaningful literacy program
(Afflerbach 2012).
• Yopp-Sing Assessment
• designed for Kindergarteners but can also be used in 1 st grade
• evaluates a student’s understanding of 22 common words
• shows valuable data about each student’s current literacy level
• provides insight into what instruction should be provided to help each student
improve

5. GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS P-3
• Seoul Foreign School
• international school in South Korea
• English-speaking day school that serves the needs of students from 56
different countries
• students that speak more than one language

6. GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS P-3
Jim
• Good reader
• Native speaker
• One wrong question
• Areas for growth

7. GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS P-3
Sayaka
• English is her second language
• Hard working
• Common problems with students learning English who have a native
language that is unrelated to English like Japanese
• had trouble with “sh”, “/th/ /r/”, and “v.”
• areas for growth

8. GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS P-3
Tomas
• Speaks Italian and Korean as native languages
• can easily recall sounds and has a bank of sounds in his head that are the
same in both English and Italian
• has trouble with the sound “th”
• areas for growth

9. GETTING TO KNOW LITERACY LEARNERS P-3
• Analysis and Reflection
• Implementing the Yopp-sing assessment
• Making informed conclusions from the assessment data
• Using the data to make instructional decision in the future
• Overall a value experience and valuable tool
• K-12 Assessment
• CURRV model

10. SELECTING TEXTS
• Selecting texts is another important part of developing a balanced
literacy environment.
• Texts and digital media both have a place in a literacy curriculum
(Laureate 2010).
• Using the four quadrants
• Narrative
• Informative
• Linguistic
• Semiotic

11. SELECTING TEXTS
• Some questions to consider include:
• How often do singleton words occur?
• How long is the text?
• What is the structure of the text?
• Does the text have connection to prior knowledge?
• What is the purpose of the text?
• What is the size of print?
• What kinds of visual aids are provided in the text
(Laureate 2010b)

12. SELECTING TEXTS
• Use based assessment data
• Good online resources
• www.childrenslibrary.org
• www.mainlesson.com

13. SELECTING TEXTS
• Select a variety of texts
• Examples
• “Beautiful Warrior: The Legend of the Nun’s Kung Fu” by Emily
Arnold McCully.
• “Bee-bim Bop!” by Linda Sue Park
• “C is for China (World Alphabets)” by Sungwan So
• “The Three Little Pigs” from the English Fairy Tales
by Joseph Jacobs.

14. SELECTING TEXTS
• Conclusions
• The select texts offer a variety of difficulty levels but are all appropriate for
kindergarten students.
• The select texts have variety of difficulty levels
• The select texts represent all areas of the literacy matrix
including narrative-informational and linguistic-semiotic
(Laureate 2010).

15. DEVELOPING LITERACY LESSONS
• The Framework for Literacy Instruction can be a valuable tool for
assisting the selections of quality texts (Laureate 2010c).
• Three perspectives
• interactive
• critical
• response

16. DEVELOPING LITERACY LESSONS
• Using “The Three Little Pigs” to build balance literacy lessons
• Addressing the interactive perspective
• Addressing the response perspective
• Addressing the critical perspective

17. DEVELOPING LITERACY LESSONS
• “The Three Little Pigs” Lesson 1
• Procedures
• whole class sits on the floor
• series of leading questions to engage their metacognition and prior
knowledge
• What do you think this book is about?
• Have any of you heard the story of the Three Little Pigs?
• Have any of you seen a pig in real life?
• Read the book out loud to the students
• Ask the students to recall the story

18. DEVELOPING LITERACY LESSONS
• “The Three Little Pigs” Lesson 1
• Procedures
• Break the class up into four groups
• hand each group scripts of the story
• Students are given time to practice reading the story as they act out their part
• The next day students perform the story for the whole class in a reader’s
theater style performance
• The teacher assesses their performance

19. DEVELOPING LITERACY LESSONS
• “The Three Little Pigs” Lesson 2
• Procedures
• Guided discussion about the story
• Students are asked to answer questions out loud
• Which characters were important to the story?
• Why were these characters important?
• What lessons can you learn from the characters?
 Students are then asked to write down which character they thought was the
most important and why

20. CONCLUSION
• Creating a literate environment is done best through a balanced
approach
• Getting to know learners, selecting texts, and building quality units of
instruction are part of building a literate environment

21. REFERENCES
Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.
Afflerbach, P. (2012). Understanding and Using Reading Assessment, K-12 (2nd e.) Newark, DE: International Reading
Association.
Common Core Standards (2012) from http://www.corestandards.org/
Marshall, J. (1989). The Three Pigs. New York, NY: Dial.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010a). Critical perspective. [Video webcast]. In The Beginning Reader, Pre K-3.
Laureate Education, Inc. [Executive Producer]. (2010b). Analyzing and Selecting Texts [Video webcast]. In The Beginning
Reader, Pre K-3.
Laureate Education, Inc. [Executive Producer]. Perspectives on Literacy Learners (2010c). [Video webcast]. In The
Beginning Reader, Pre K-3.