AHarrington

In Revisiting the Reader's Workshop , the authors Orehovec and Alley describe the elements of a successful reading workshop. A reading workshop begins with a mini-lesson that may be taught in conjunction with a read aloud. The book stresses the importance of reading aloud to children. In a chart comparing the traditional way reading is taught to the reading workshop method, the authors show that the reading workshop offers a more student-centered approach to reading along with offering more time to actually read. The beginning of the book also outlined some good management techniques for maintaining the reading workshop. In addition, the authors give instructions on how to set up an effective mini-lesson.

This book reminds me of the many advantages students have in the reading workshop. When I began my career as a language arts teacher, our school used the reading and writing workshop methods outlined in Nancy Atwell's book entitled In the Middle . I really enjoyed letting the students choose what they wanted to read. With the right structure and classroom management, the reading workshop can be a wonderful way to teach reading. As an ESOL teacher, I am encouraged by the claim that reading aloud to children is great for acquiring language and comprehension. ESOL teachers do a tremendous amount of reading aloud to our students, as well as having choral and echo readings with the students. Our ESOL text refers to mini-lessons as "focus skills." These are very helpful for the students. I would like to incorporate more mini-lessons, like the ones in this book, into the the stories we read and give my students more freedom to choose their own stories.