Ayana Fletcher-Tyson

October 16, 2015

EDUC 6400: Materials Analysis

Take Home Exam 1

1. What model of reading seems to guide the design of this reading

instructional program?
a. I believe the model that this reading instructional program is most
closely designed around is the model put forth by Marilyn Yager
Adams.
2. Reading Cue Systems and Reading Processess
a. In the Adams Model, Adams believes there are 4 processors, or
cue systems, that contribute to the reading process. The four
processors according to Adams are the orthographic processor,
the phonological processor, the meaning processor, and the
context processor. Since the Adams model is more of a bottom-
heavy model that believes that phonics, decoding skills and
automatic word recognition are key, the reading process, to her,
begins in the orthographic processor as this processor alones
receives information directly from the printed page (Adams
p.1226). The orthographic processor relates to the visual of the
text and the ability of the reader to decode the print correctly.
The phonological processor supports the orthographic
processor, as the phonological processor increases the readers
running memory of the text so that it is easier for
comprehension to be achieved (Adams p. 1235). The
orthographic and phonological processor work together to send
the visual or spoken words to the meaning processor and
context processor. The meaning processor deals with the
meaning of the text; once the print is decoded and sent to this
processor, this system ensures that the word makes sense within
the sentence. The context processor also ensures that word
makes sense with the syntax or grammar of the sentence and
within the context of the piece. Within the Journeys material,
there are many teacher moves that seem to come from the ideas
and processors of the Adams model. For example, starting with
the creation of the Morning Message as a class, the teacher is
encouraging the students to use the orthographic processor and
phonological processor to read aloud with the teacher the words
given and hear and register the correct pronunciation; then they
must engage the meaning processor and context processor to
ensure that the word they choose to complete the sentence
makes sense within the message (Teachers Manual T12). Then
as the lesson moves in to the Daily Phonemic Awareness and
High-Frequency Words, the teacher begins instructing the
students more in a way that uses the phonological processer and
orthographic processor as the students work to quickly identify
beginning sounds using the phonological processor as they are
hearing speech and the orthographic processor as they are
reading print (Teachers Manual T13). During the Daily
Phonemic Awareness section, the teacher is given advice on
how to give corrective feedback is a child misses a beginning
sound by [saying] the correct word and [modeling] the task for
them correctly (Teachers manual T13). From the very
beginning, this curriculum program does not let mistakes
regarding the pronunciation or recognition of letters or words
slide without correction. The high-frequency words section
especially lines up with the Adams model as it is incredibly
important to her model that students have quick word
recognition skills. Comprehension is hurt if a child takes too
long to identify successive words, the beginning of the sentence
will fade from memory before the end is registered (Adams
p.1238). During the Teacher Read Aloud lesson, one of the
objectives shared with the students is that good readers
recognize words and read them correctly as they read aloud
(Teachers Manual T14). This aligns directly with Adams
implications for instruction as she advises that students are
taught early that good reading always involves reading the
correct words on the page. Also, one of the read aloud books
that is provided on day 1 is The Lion and the Mouse and there
are no pictures provided (Teachers Manual T14-T15). Adams
would like this teacher move as it causes the student to rely on
the words of the text to comprehend. The phonics and
decodable text section of the lesson requires the teacher to
instruct the students on activating their orthographic processor
to decode the text and recognize the high-frequency and sight
words quickly (Teachers Manual T16-T19). During the daily
assessment of the decodable text, teachers are asked to guide
students through correcting a miscue of reading Nan as Man
(Teachers Manual T19). The teacher is asked to correct the
error by saying Say the word. That word is Nan. It begins with
the sound /n/. The letter N stands for /n/ (Teachers Manual
T19). Adams would have approved of this teacher move as
according to her skillful readers visually process virtually each
letter of every word they read; therefore, for these students to
be skillful in her eyes, they cannot mix up n and m (Adams p.
1226). Teachers are also reminded to tell students to reread Dan
and Nan three or four times and each time and then remind
them to read the words correctly (Teachers Manual T19).
Again, this is a teacher move Adams would approve of as she
believes that comprehension is not able to be met without
correct word reading. This is following another part of Adams
teaching in that it will not do for readers to ignore [any of the
authors words], nor will guessing suffice (Adams p. 1226).
Finally, the text chosen for the anchor text requires that the
teacher ensure that the students are using their knowledge of
high-frequency words and the orthographic processors instead
of relying on pictures in the book to understand the words in the
text(Teachers Manual T20). Before the reading of the anchor
text, the teacher is instructed to explicitly teach the Vocabulary
in Context words using the Vocabulary in Context sentence and
picture cards therefore ensuring the students are better able to
 read the word correctly when they come to them in the text
(Teachers Manual T20).

b. The cue systems or reading processors that all students must engage
the most on Day 1 are the orthographic processor and meaning
processor. Throughout the phonemic awareness/phonics lessons
students must quickly identify sounds and CVC words correctly using
the visual image of the words on paper (Teachers Manuel T16-T17).
During the decodable reader section of Day 1, students are asked to
read and reread the text correctly. They must also respond to questions
about what the cats names are and what they do (Teachers Manual
T19). Both of these tasks focus on using either the orthographic
processor and/or the meaning processor as the tasks deal with reading
printed text and answering comprehension questions about the overall
meaning of the printed text. As the students move into the anchor text
section, they are expected to understand the Words To Know in
context, calling on the both the orthographic processor and the
meaning processor as they learn and use those high-frequency words
of play, be, and, help, with, and you (Teachers Manual T20). Once
the students have worked with the words using the Vocabulary in
Context cards, on-level and above-level readers are expected to
complete an activity that draws on the orthographic processor as they
are writing, and the meaning and context processor as they are
expected to fill in sentences with the correct high-frequency
vocabulary word; the sentence is not correct unless it makes syntactic
and semantic sense (Teachers Manual T21).
i. Across the day 1 lesson and its components, there is overall a
lot of teacher-directed focus for the students put on word
recognition which is a distinction of instructional programs
following the Adam model. The students are given the skills to
use visual cues to decode words or recognize words so that
eventually the ability to recognize and capture the meaning of
print is rapid, effortless, and automatic so that they as readers
have available the cognitive energy and resources on which
true comprehension depends (Adams p. 1220-1221).
3. Analyze texts from a models perspective: The Big Book: My Colors,
My World; Teacher Read Aloud: The Lion and the Mouse; Decodable
Reader: Dan and Nan; Anchor Text: What is a pal?
a. The two texts that the teacher reads aloud are My Colors, My World
and The Lion and the Mouse. My Colors, My World is a beautiful book
that is based on the authors childhood and is written in both English
and Spanish on the pages of the book. In describes a day of life in the
desert, where the main character, a little girl, must work hard to see
the beauty in the colors all around her. The big book lesson offers
many chances for the teacher to reinforce word recognition skills,
fluent reading, and using the text to answer comprehension questions.
The Lion and the Mouse is a traditional Aesop fable that is read from a
teacher text. This is a short text with several first grade Tier 2
academic vocabulary words such as excellent, suddenly, miss,
invitation, ruin, and beautiful that the teacher is instructed to teach as
it is used in the story (Teachers Manual T14). Since this story does
not have pictures, this book lends itself to the students answering
comprehension questions without any reliance on picture clues. It also
lends itself to the students having to pay close attention to the words
in the surrounding the new vocabulary words in the text and listening
to how they are used in context because there is not a picture in the
text to support any vocabulary.

b. The parts of the reading process that are developed through the
teacher read alouds are:
i. The ability of a reader to [select] word meanings that are
appropriate to the text (Adams p.1230).
1. Ex: The teacher is asked to draw the students attention to
how special letters can convey meaning, the
distinguishing features of sentences, and to ensure that
they are using context to confirm understandings of
word meanings (Teachers Manual p. xxiv). These
teacher moves relates to Adams model as they are again
focusing the students attention that the words they say
matter and that they can use the context of sentence to
 self-check words as they read them aloud making sure
they make sense within the text.
ii. The ability of a reader to acquire the meaning of new words
gradually by encountering them in context (Adams p. 1232).
1. Ex: In the Teacher Read Aloud lesson, the teacher
introduces oral vocabulary by discussing the word
alongside the meaning it has in the story (Teachers
Manual p. T14)
iii. The ability of the reader to increase their auditory images of
words
(Adams p.1235).
1. Ex: In the big book, the teacher is asked to track the print
as she or he reads reinforcing to students that it is
important the words they read (Teachers Manual p.
xxiv). The student is seeing the word in the big book text
and hearing the word from the teacher; the phonological
processor is working to remember that when the reader
sees that word it remembers what it sounds like as well.

c. The students are required to read the decodable reader, Dan and Nan
and the anchor text, What is a pal? Dan and Nan is a book about two
cats. The decodable reader is working on the short a sound and is used
to develop fluency and automaticity (Teachers Manual p. T19). The
anchor text, What is a pal? is a complex text that gives children
practice in [recognizing] and [reading] irregularly spelled words
(Teachers Manual T20).

d. Both of these texts reflect input from the Adams model. In both the
decodable reader and the anchor text, the print is sufficiently large
and spaced out so that no two letter [share] the same physical input
channel; the look of the text is important for any reading
instructional program that is adhering to an Adams Model (Adams p.
1227-1228). Every word in the decodable reader Dan and Nan is a
short A CVC word or a sight word. This matches the Adams model
because the student is not depending on pictures to read the text but is
actually looking at the printed words and deciphering what they read.
 The lesson surrounding the decodable text very explicitly teaches
building sort A words and sounding out the correct sounds which
ensures the students will eventually be able to read the words
accurately (Teachers Manual T17). Since the objective is different in
the anchor text, the teacher must teach the irregular high-frequency
words first before the students read the text. However, the students are
still not able to rely on the pictures and must actually look at the
words to tread and comprehend the text.

4. How do these materials help students meet CCSS related to text

complexity and close reading?
a. For this curriculum, text complexity is addressed through
informational and fictional texts in this curriculum. These student-read
texts are to be read multiple times so that the students can become
stronger readers [who know] the skills and habits needed to read
complex texts (Journeys Overview page 16). For the setting routines
lesson in the Journeys Overview, the students read an informational
text titled A Cat. Under the Range of Reading and Level of Text
Complexity standard for grade 1 say that students should read
appropriate informational texts with prompting and support which
the teachers guide offers ample questions and steps for scaffolding
the material for students (Common Core Standards for ELA). In the
actual lesson 1, the Anchor text, What is a pal?, serves as an
informational complex text for first graders. When considering text
complexity, one must consider instructional decisions that [are] the
most appropriate use of the text for meeting student needs (Fisher and
Frey p.236). I believe this text is being appropriately used to meet
student needs because the irregular vocabulary is taught in context
with picture support, the subject matter is important for those first few
weeks of first grade as a teacher is working to build a culture of
teamwork and friendship in the classroom, hopeful that all of the
students will eventually be pals, and the task of answering oral
comprehension questions involving text evidence is also appropriate
for a beginning of year first grader.
 i. Text complexity is also seen in the teacher read aloud: The Lion
and the Mouse. It is quite possible that students have not yet
been introduced to the fictional story type of a fable. This fable
also has a high level of vocabulary that the teacher must pre-
teach (Teachers Manual T14-15). In this fable, the lesson is
you never know when you may need the help of a friend
(Teachers Manual T15). The teacher could use the moral from
the read aloud lesson and lead children to connect it the anchor
text What is a pal?. Students could discuss whole class or in
partnerships what it means to be a friend that others can call
upon in their time of need and who others will also want to
help.

b. In the Journeys curriculum, children can be given access to complex

texts through close reading if the teacher takes the initiative to use the
support texts supplied. In the Journeys Overview on page 16, the
routine is described as a first read as a whole class that is led by the
teacher, a second read of shorter sections that is also led by the
teacher, and finally a third read that is independent and will be
followed by writing responses in a Readers Notebook. The students
experience a close reading in the Journeys Overview setting routines
lesson through the reading of the complex text, A Cat. In the Teachers
Manual, for lesson 1, the anchor text is What is a Pal?; the curriculum
pares Friends Forever which would lend itself to providing the
students with scaffolds during a potential close reading lesson. When
close reading, teachers must help students understand the language of
the passage so that they are able to have a more precise
understanding of the text (Lapp p.2). The anchor text section of the
lesson provides an opportunity for this with the guidance of the
Vocabulary in Context cards. All of the irregular words that are
featured in the text and may not yet be familiar to first graders are
given a sentence to define them in context and a picture to help further
explain the word so that students feel comfortable reading and using
them. This will also help if students encounter these words in Friends
Forever; because of these vocabulary lessons, they will already have
 familiarity with them. Even though looking ahead in Unit 1 shows
that the class guide does not revisit the two texts, the option is there to
provide a close reading of the text if teachers choose to make some
instructional choices on their own, away from an exact following of
the Journeys Manual.

5. Sociocultural Perspective
a. Students participating in this lesson would form a cultural model of
reading that shows that English and Spanish are acceptable in the
classroom and that children must be active participants in literacy
through reading, discussing, and responding in whole group and with
their peers. Through the read aloud My Colors, My World being
translated right in the book into Mis Colores, Mi mundo to the
constant ability for the teacher to be able to point out to native
Spanish speakers the presence of Spanish cognates in the English
language, the children in this class are able to see from lesson 1 that
English is not the only language with value in education. In this
lesson, while the main social language is academic early elementary
English, there are still ways for students to see that perhaps the social
language of their home (in this case Spanish) also has value as a
language heard in an academic setting (Gee p. 32). For the children
who speak Spanish or hear Spanish at home, I believe that this would
be extremely powerful and hopefully allow them to start or to
continue to feel comfortable in the classroom expressing themselves
in Spanish if they felt the need. For any students who may speak
another language other than English and Spanish, hopefully, this
would still go towards making them feel comfortable as they can see
that while English may be the dominant language, other languages
absolutely must be treated with respect and value. Through the routine
of contributing to the Morning Message to the paired text about
friendship that students are responsible for reading and discussing,
there are many times throughout the Unit 1 lesson that students must
be active in their learning and not just passive listeners. While there is
a lot to offer students from a cultural literacy model, there are still
reader roles missing, perhaps because it is the first lesson. In this
 lesson, the priority was to show literacy mainly through the pathways
of the written word and traditional texts. Students were not yet given
the space to interact with literacy with self-created images, objects, or
tools. It seems that for lesson 1, there were not multiple ways to
express meaning and to mediate the world [such as through] art,
music, mathematics, drama, and language; rather literacy was shown
mainly through printed texts (Leland and Harste, p.339). The example
from the Leland and Harste article of a Sketch to Stretch would have
been an interesting exercise to use with the My Colors, My World
book as the children could have been asked to draw what it meant to
them to find the many different colors in their own worlds (Leland
and Harste, p. 337). Also, if the teacher decided to implement the
interactive whiteboard lesson for the week, students could be engaged
in the material through a technological pathway and possibly it could
[inspire some] passive children to become active learners (Journeys
Overview 14).

6. Critical Literacy perspective

a. Four Resources Model of Reading
i. Coding Practices Resource: This resource deals with the
questions of how do I crack this text? How does it work?
(Luke p.454). The phonics lesson and decodable text Dan and
Nan, supports a students learning of this resource as they are
given the tools to decode or crack the words with the short a
sound. Any lesson
ii. Text-Meaning Practices Resource: This resource deals with the
questions of how do the ideas represented in the text string
together? What cultural resources can be brought to bear on the
text? (Luke p.454). The big book My Colors, My World is an
example of how the Journeys lessons can support this resource
as the book lends itself to a class discussion of how the world
can constantly be seen through different eyes and different
viewpoints. Students of different backgrounds and cultural
practices would all have a different way of looking at the colors
in their world, and at the world in general.
 b. I believe an excellent way to have students take a critical perspective
as readers would be through the second dimension interrogating
multiple viewpoints. In an effort to think about whose voices are
heard and not hear? I would bring in the book The Little Red Ant and
the Great Big Crumb: A Mexican Fable by Shirley Climo (Lewison et
al. p.386). I believe that this book would be a good companion text to
the Teacher Read Aloud The Lion and the mouse because it would be
offering an age-old fable from a Hispanic author and viewpoint. Most
fables read in school are from Anglo-Saxon authors; reading this as a
companion text would give the students the opportunity to see that all
communities and cultures contribute fables to the worlds stories.

7. Supports for English Language Learners in the Journeys lessons

a. What kinds of support?
i. In this curriculum, there are several specifics supports
explained for ELLs. For the whole group lessons, it advises
using point-of-use scaffolded support through visuals, gestures,
comprehensible input, peer-supported learning, and use of
sentence frames (Journeys Overview page 17). Since we
cannot use synthetic phonics as the sole initial method for
teaching emergent bilingual children, the curriculum also
provides the teacher with Vocabulary in Context card which are
excellent for ELLs who need whole-word, meaning-making,
English Language instruction (Gregory p.117). For small group
instruction, the curriculum also provides an ELL leveled reader
which still provides the same content while [using] more
accessible language (Teachers Manual page T7). Finally, there
is an additional resource pack for Lesson 1 that will build
background knowledge for the Daily Lessons. There is a
Language Support Card, ELL Blackline Masters, and an ELL
Teachers Handbook (Teachers Manual page T7).

b. How would I extend/revise these lessons?

i. While the Journeys curriculum has done an excellent job of
supplying resources and scaffolds to support ELL students, I
 would extend this lesson in a few ways to make it even more
accessible to ELL learners. First, I would ensure that ELL
students are feeling confident by explicitly naming that they are
using skills they already have in [matching] symbols to
sounds since it is a confined task and it is very likely they
will be able to show success in the phonics section of unit 1
lesson 1(Gregory p.124) . Many new language learners are
familiar with phonic clues from reading tuition in their first
language and I would want to capitalize on this expertise
(Gregory p. 124). I would also make sure that with any new
vocabulary or high-frequency words we were learning, I would
give the ELL students at some point that day the chance to draw
their own pictures in their personal language dictionaries
because the most important lexical clue for children and adults
as they read in any language [is] the extent to which the word
carries deep personal meaning (Gregory p. 135). I would want
to give each of my ELL students a chance to make personal
connections to these words so that they will be able to gain
automaticity and fluency with them quickly.

References
Adams, M. (1994). Modeling the Connections Between Word Recognition and
Reading. In Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (4th ed., pp. 838-
863). International Reading Association.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Addressing CCSS Anchor Standard 10: Complexity.
Language Arts, 91(4), 236-250.

Gee, J. (2002). A sociocultural perspective on early literacy development. In

Handbook of Early Literacy Research. New York: The Guilford Press.

Gregory, E. (2008). Learning to read in a new language: Making sense of words

and worlds (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Lapp, D., Moss, B., Johnson, K., & Grant, M. (2013). Teaching Students to
Closely Read Texts: How and When? IRA E-ssentials IRAE, 1-12.

Leland, C., & Harste, J. (1994). Multiple Ways of Knowing: Curriculum in a new
key. Language Arts, 71(5), 337-345.

Lewison, M., Flint, A., Van Sluys, K., & Henkin, R. (2002). Taking on Critical
Literacy: The Journey of Newcomers and Novices. Language Arts, 79(5),
382-392.

Luke, A. (2000). Critical literacy in Australia: A matter of context and standpoint.

Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 43(5), 448-461.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State
School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English
language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical
subjects. Washington, DC: Authors.