Reading Workshop

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Home : 2004 : November : 15

Reading Workshop
By Frustrated2

Well, I too am truly exhausted and overwhelmed. I teach in NYC also and we ARE pushed and pulled every which way making it so difficult to do ALL the things we are REQUIRED to do. We can no longer be creative in our teaching
unless we sneak it. It's all about standards. As for Reading workshop, this is how I "try" to get it done. I've been teaching 6 years and have done Guided reading for 5, with Literacy centers etc... First off, I do not have my Writing workshop with my reading workshop. We have 2 blocks of Literacy in the morning and 1 period of writing in the afternoon, (writing 3 x a week).

For Literacy, I usually do a shared reading of a poem, (or read aloud a story) for 15 minutes. During this time, I teach a specific strategy the kids can use or try during independent reading. After Shared reading, I go into Guided reading. While I take a group the rest of the class is either finishing reading group work from the day before or going to a center, (sometimes I'll even have them work on the poem that we read for the week, finding rhyming words, making other words with the same pattern, etc...), or I'll have them write about their weekends on Monday, etc... They are sometimes very noisy, but at the beginning of the year it is essential to set the tone of HOW Literacy should be. For children who cannot handle it one day, they are not allowed to go to centers the next day. I try to take 2 groups a day. It can work if you have a good helper in the class to keep the rest of the kids on task. (I don't), so it can get noisy at times. If they are TOO noisy, have them read independently for 20 minutes or buddy read and respond to it.

As for Writing workshop, I focus on one type of writing each month, including genres(nonfiction, fiction, fairytales, narrative accounts, narrative procedures, persuasive writing, informational writing, etc...) I try to teach mini-lessons for each type of writing. I immerse the children in literature that pertains to the genre or text and then we begin our own types of writing depending on the month. This is a lot to read but if it's unclear or if you have any questions please let me know and I will try to help you. I'm not sure if this is right, but it's what I do. Hope this is understandable and try not to stress too much. It IS frustrating but you WILL get the hang of it and do well. Good luck.