GJones

Chpater 7 is about getting readers to an independent, confident stage of reading. Students are responsible for sharing with each other in conferences. The environment of the reader must be conducive to reading.  Teachers need to be passionate in their approach to reading or students will pick up on the discconnect between subject and teacher.

 Conversations are very critical in this stage of development.  Teachers are given a checklist to go by and several conferring strategies to help with the dialogue.

 Chapter 8 focuses on practical ways to assess the workshop. Anecdotal records, checklists, running records, analysis, oral retellings, written retellings, reading logs, and journal responses are the ongoing assessments provided. The rubrics of instruction at the end of the book are extremely practical and easy to recreate. 

Chapter 4 has a lot of mini-lessons that are broken down to accomodate specific grade levels. I liked the mini lessons supplied.  This is to support the first several weeks of instruction for a novice at the Reading workshop experience.  

The fifth chapter focuses on  specific reading strategies and skills. Visualizing, making inferences, and looking ahead are just some of the skills mentioned. There are a lot of books listed as resources, some are actually in the media center.  Students are very independent in this setting and are expected to utilize the books to further their growth in reading.

Chapter 6 has a variety of mini-lessons that focus on literacy elements such as setting, characters, and cause and effect. Students would also learn about writer's purpose, symbolism, and figurative language.