1. Creating a
Literate
Environment
Greta Giglio
Walden University
August 12, 2012

2. Getting to Know My Students
• What are their attitudes about reading?
• What motivates them to read?
• What are they interested in?
• How important is reading to them?
Current theories suggest that self-perceived competence and task
value are major determinations of motivation and task
management (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Masonni, 1996, p.
318) for children.
Understanding my student’s dispositions toward reading
help me to plan for effective lessons that address their
individual needs.

3. Choosing Texts for Students
Supplementing the reading series by providing a
variety of texts, including trade books (fiction/non-
fiction), Internet texts, iPad applications, magazines,
newspapers, etc. helps to create a more literate
environment for students.
• Tompkins (2010) contends that it is unrealistic to assume a basal reading
series alone could constitute a complete reading program.

4. Choosing Texts for Students, Cont.
• Include texts on several levels of difficulty.
• Include texts that strike a balance between
the amount of words and pictures, and
narrative and informational pieces.
• Provide students with texts sets (collections of
fiction and non-fiction books that are centered
around a theme).

5. Teaching from the
Interactive Perspective
Tompkins (2011) contends that it is important for
students to be metacognitive, explaining their thinking
during or after reading in order for teachers to be able to
get an insight into what is going on inside their heads.
• Ask students probing questions about the characters, setting,
and plot.
• Teach them the features of narrative and non-fiction texts.
• Help them learn reading and comprehension strategies and
how to apply and select those strategies independently,
through techniques such as guided reading groups.
This perspective involves supporting student’s interaction with
texts so they can be more strategic as they apply reading
strategies. This metacognitive activity helps create a literate
environment that students are able to navigate on their own.

6. Teaching from the Critical and
Responsive Perspectives
Almasi (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011) describes student’s
interaction with text at this level as a transaction” between
reader and text in which the text, as well as the reader, are
marked by the experience in such a way that both are
permanently transformed by the event., like clay billiard balls
that collide are changed forever.

7. Teaching from the
Critical and Responsive Perspectives
• Teach students how to activate background
knowledge about theme and key vocabulary to
help them understand and think critically about
the text.
• Ask probing questions about the author’s
purpose, character’s motivations, and importance
of the settings that help students analyze and
make judgments about the text.
• Use teaching tools such as reading logs, dramatic
play, and think-a-louds to model reading and
thinking strategies and evoke personal responses
from the students.

8. Summary
When planning for language and literacy
instruction, keep in mind three vital
ingredients for success:
1. Know your students and develop assessments to help
you do that.
2. Be able to select a variety of quality literature based
on what you have learned about your students
academically as well as non-cognitively.
3. Teach with the interactive, critical, and responsive
perspectives in mind, so that students are taught to
think deeply, analyze, judge, and respond to text in a
meaningful and authentic way.

9. “Teachers therefore do not
lead classes carefully along to foreseen
conclusions, sustained by critical authority,
about literary works. Instead, they face the
difficult but interesting task of
acknowledging the differences, and crafting
out of that material, significant discussion”
(Probst, 1987, p. 2).

10. References
• Gambrell, L. B., Palmer, B. M., Codling, R. M., & Mazzoni, S. A.
(1996). Assessing motivation to read. The Reading
Teacher, 49(7), 518--533.
• Laureate Education, Inc. (Almasi, J.) (2011). Responsive
perspective. [DVD]. The Beginning Reader. Baltimore,
MD: Almasi.
• Probst, R. E. (1987). Transactional theory in the teaching of
literature. Resources in Education, 22(12).
• Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A
balanced approach (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.