EWalker

Chapters seven and eight of Revisiting The Reading Workshop  focuses on independent reading and different types of assessment that can be used in reading workshops. One thing I thought was very interesting is that it said to share your passion for reading with your students. I agree that it is important that they know how much their teacher enjoys to read and that reading can be fun! It also gave different ideas for reading such as partner reading and flexible groups. It gives ways to confer with a student and get their imput on the books they read such as writing responses. Chapter eight focused on ways to assess a reader and see how much they have accomplished. It is important to make sure each student has a book that is on their reading level. I use our library leveled readers for this. There are many ways to assess readers such as running records and observation checklists. I give my students an oral reading test weekly so I can keep up with their progress. I think these chapters gave a lot of examples that I can use to help better assess readers.

The next three chapters of Revisiting The Reading Workshop  focused on ways to set up mini lessons. It took three different types of mini lessons, procedures, reading stratigies and skills and literary elements and techniques, and gave ways to set up mini lessons on each. The purpose of these lessons and all the planning that goes into each one is to empower the student which I believe is very important. At times the material seems to hard in a first grade classroom but I do agree with the author that younger students need a lot of modeling before they can complete tasks in workshops by themselves. These chapters also gave an example of twenty days of lessons which is useful to people who want to set up workshops and have never done them before. It also gives stratigies and skills that need to be covered. The most useful information that I received from this reading is the list of books. It gave a list of books and what skills they cover. I am excited to read these books and find the different skills they cover and then use them in my workshops.

Chapters 1-3 of Revisiting The Reading Workshop explains how to set up workshops and also why they are important to use in a classroom. Chapter one tells about the parts of a reading workshop. It also compares a class with a reading workshop to a class without one. It explains how to come up with mini lessons for the workshop. It says to observe what your students need. It also gives ways to let your students respond and reflect. Chapter two went into how to get the workshops together. The teacher needs to know what she needs out of them. It also went though top priorities such as on task behavior. It also gives ways to set up the classroom and to organize your library. It also talks about how to get parent involvement. Chapter three goes into how to plan mini lessons. It tells how to structure the lessons by involving the students. It also gives different ways that the students can be involved in the lesson. They can have story partners, give thumbs up and thumbs down or take notes. It also says the ending is very important and gives ways to dismiss your students. After reading the first three chapters, I believe some of the concepts are too hard for first graders, especially beginning first graders. I use reading workshops in my classroom two to three times a week. Chapter three did have some good pointers for setting up mini lessons. I also agree that parent involvement is very important in the classroom. This book did have a few good ways to get the parents more involved in workshops.