•  READING WORKSHOP

    Reading workshop is a teaching model that supports children as they grow into independent, strategic, reflective, critical readers of books and the world around them. Over the course of the year, readers engage in several in-depth author and genre studies, and gradually deepen their ability to predict, envision, infer, monitor for sense, word-solve, respond personally, interpret, synthesize, determine importance, read critically, and make connections.

    Reading Workshop opens with a mini-lesson, during which time the teacher gather readers onto the carpet to teach a new reading strategy, modeling how to use this strategy with a classroom touchstone text. Readers try-out this new learning right away, by engaging in accountable dialogue with their partner (turn and talks) or stopping to jot, sketch or act out the strategy. Tucking this skill into their reading toolboxes, readers spend most of the remaining workshop time doing just that -- reading.

    As we peer into our reading workshop classrooms, we notice children pulling “just right books” (books that match readers’ independent reading level) out of their baggies, reading independently or back-to-back with their reading partners, tracking their thinking on post-its, meeting in groups to share and grow new thinking about books, and/or conferring with the teacher about something specific to the reader’s reading life. Reading Workshop typically wraps up with a teaching share, during which time readers discuss their reading process. Readers keep careful records of their home and school reading in logs and/or notebooks, reflecting on how their habits and thinking grow and change across the year.