Guided Reading and Writer's Workshop By Jennifer

What does Writer's Workshop look like in Open Court? My kindergartners started it in the first few days of school. I gave them the message, through modelling, that everyone in the classroom was a writer. I "thought out loud" what my story was going to be about and, on one line, scribble wrote as I dictated the sentence. On the next line, I wrote random letters, and, gradually, over time, I was modeling the first sound in each word, ensuring finger spaces and periods as well as capital letters at the beginnings of sentences. Then, I modelled stretching out words even more as I wrote. Then, after each write-to each day, the children would write in their own draft books, using an illustration as their plan and then writing with the strategies that they had developed over time. It was awesome to see their growth and to see them thinking out loud with the strategies that we had been working on on a daily basis. Each child wrote at his or her individual level and each had a student writing record in his or her draft book binder in order to chart indvidual goals and growth.

As far as Guided Reading, it's nice to hear that it can be done. What are the strategies that Open Court employs during Guided Reading lessons? Are they purely decoding or are children taught to look at the pictures for clues and self-check when a word doesn't make sense?

And as far as Word Work - do you have a word wall of high frequency words that children can refer to when writing?

These questions are many. Thank you for your input!