LJones

Revisiting Reading Workshop Chapters 1-3 We have been fortunate this year in 4th grade that our schedule allows us to have a 30 minute block for DEAR time and conferencing. This is in addition to the 1 hour block for reading using the basal/trade books/DI. Because of this, I have been able to incorporate many of the elements of Readers Workshop. I read Nancy Atwell's Middle Grades that is mentioned in Chapter 1 and while working on my masters at Berry we were to use Readers Workshop/Balanced literacy approach during our clinicals/student teaching. We are also fortunate to have many elements of Readers workshop within our basal reading program. The mini-lesson or focus on a reading strategy, the previewing and building background, fluency checks, reading logs, teacher modeling and questioning are all apart of it. I feel my students are aware of and using reading strategies discussed and modeled in class. Some highlights of ch1 include: comp;arison of traditional/and reading workshop c lassrooms; and definition of reading workshop. Chapter 2 is aobut organization and management of the workshop - it includes expectations, sample rules. sample schedules, crating an inclass library with checkout procedures, as well as communicating with parents. Chapter 3 is about planning of minilessons - I need to go back and through through it again. I'd like to keep this book.