TDavenport

I found the first three chapters of this book to be very informative.  My definition of a reading workshop was similar to the information given.  In the first chapter, I  found that my reasons for having reading workshop were somewhat the same:  providing students with a multitude of reading opportunities that would help them enrich their love of reading.  At the same time, providing students with mini-lessons before hand gives them the direct instruction that so many of them need in order to be a successful independent reader.  I enjoyed the breakdown of the elements of a reading workshop.  Strategic practices should be taught in order for a child to read independently. 

One area that i hope to improve in is the way students work independently during the guided reading sessions.  Although they each have a scheduled workshop to work in, some students find it hard to stay on task in that particular workshop, therefore, interrupting me when I am trying to work with others.  I hope that by reading and implementing some of the information provided in this book, I will be able to better arrange my workshops so that everyone is gaining something beneficial from our reading time.

I want to work on organizing my classroom library so the students can know what level to read from.  This will probably help with those that are sometime off task.    The Independent Reading Guide on page 36 is very good, however, I believe that as a first grade teacher, I will have to adapt it to meet the needs of my students.