TDoss

Chapter 7 is all about the most important part of Reading Workshop -- the independent reading time. It talks about the practices and behaviors teachers should expect from  students during this reading time. Several things are key: the teacher fostering a love of reading, creating an orderly environment, helping students choose appropriate books, and guiding students as they read through story chats, guided reading and flexible grouping. This chapter talks about how to confer with students to get the most out of the conference time.

Chapter 8 talks about how to effectively assess students during the Reading Workshop. Assessment should be ongoing and should match instruction. Assessment should drive what is taught. One of the best ways to assess reading is to listen to a child read. Other ways to assess include anecdotal records and checklists, running records, oral and written retellings, and error analysis. Rubrics used during Reading Workshops are also helpful.

Week 2, Chapters 4 through 6

Chapter 4 outlines how the teacher should spend the first month of reading workshop, specifically how to help learn the processes of reading workshop. Time must be spent in extablishing routines and procedures. Students learn the parts of reading workshop and how it is carried out in the classroom. The chapter also gives a 20 days of mini-lessons that should be taught the first month.

In Chapter 5, outlines the strategies and skills for the mini-lesson. It talks about determining the skill to be taught, planning the lesson, the follow-up lesson and the evaluation of the skill taught. It also gives a listing of appropriate childrens' books that can be used to teach these mini-lessons as well as an example (script) of an actual lesson. In addition, this chapter talks about the eight key reading strategies.

Chapter 6 outlines the literary elements that students should be taught during the year, including character, setting, plot, theme, story patterns, etc. The chapter also give examples of childrens' books that you the teacher can use in your classroom to teach these elements. It also covers the topics of literary techniques that the teacher should cover during the year, including character description, organization, rhyme, rhythm and repetition, use of dialogue. Childrens' books are listed to help the teacher teach those literary techniques.  Examples of mini-lessons are provided for both.

I am reading "Revisiting the Reading Workshop: Management, Mini-Lessons and Strategies" by Barbara Orehovec and Marybeth Alley. In the first chapter, the book does a good job at outlining exactly what Reading Workshop is. It has four main components -- the mini-lesson and read aloud, independent reading and conferencing, response and reflection, and sharing. It also shares research which supports Reading Workshop and how Reading Workshop compares to traiditional classrooms.

Chapter 2 gives a complete overview on how to manage Reading Workshop in your classroom, from setting your expectations, setting up a schedule to meet your needs, and designing your classroom to accommodate for Reading Workshop. It gives detail instructions on how you can set up your classroom library and how to deal with parents. There are also several examples of forms that can be used in the Reading Workshop process.

Chapter 3 talks about the importance of planning your mini-lessons in Reading Workshop. The mini-lesson is the most important component of Reading Workshop because it provides the focus for the day. Planning needs to be done in both a long-term and short-term method. It talks about the teacher's role in the mini-lesson and the students role. It also gives some helpful hints on how to transition smoothly into independent reading.