A New Year of Workshop Teaching

This year, evidence that workshop teaching makes a difference appeared on the first day of school. As I walked through the halls, I heard teachers excitedly remarking that their new students could “turn and talk” without being prompted, they understood that reading is about “comprehension and fluency,” and many were choosing books that were “just right.” I saw students sharing books with their friends before the first bell and students “lost in books” in their classrooms. Last week I spent time in 3^rd grade and was impressed with the hum in both classrooms as transitions during Reading Workshop were smooth, calm, and quick. Students clearly understood expectations that, “nothing matters more than time spent reading.”

Reading Comprehension

Here is my blurb for the April newsletter but I am posting it here because I wanted to share the bulleted list with everyone (See below). If all classrooms supported similar language around talking and thinking about reading, I think ALL students would benefit and we'd be developing deep comprehension. 

“Deep comprehension is the result of a well-orchestrated system of flexible decision-making strategies working together (most of the time, unconsciously) to construct meaning for the author’s message.” ~Dorn & Soffos

 

As a teacher of reading, my goal for every one of my students is comprehension or understanding of what they read. Reading without constructing meaning is word-calling and will certainly never hook a student to the joy of reading. Reading is thinking! Students need to think before, during, and after they read. They should infer and analyze the characters in a story, understand the story structure, and interact with their minds about the plot by making connections, asking questions, and visualizing.

 

Teachers prompt for this level of understanding during read aloud, shared reading, small group instruction, and reading conferences. Having conversations about stories develops the skills required for deep comprehension. However, students need to be taught the skills required for successful conversations so that they not become one-way streets in which the adult does all the talking. One way to support and practice those skills is to provide some possible language prompts that will scaffold dialogue such as:

 

• I agree…
• I disagree…
• I don’t understand…
• The evidence from the text is…
• I noticed…
• I wonder why…
• The author’s message is…
• I think the author meant…
• That made me think about…

 

If this language is modeled at school and at home while reading with or to your child, rich conversations and deeper comprehension is sure to follow. This will help build good reading habits and life-long readers.

Poetry Links

Here is a link to resources for poems and poetry ideas. And here is one of my favorite poems:

Dreams

by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

A Poem in Your Pocket!

April is Poetry Month and April 29 has been declared Poem in Your Pocket Day. Click on the link for more information and resources about the day when everyone at Williams-Cone can carry a poem in their pocket to share with whoever they happen to meet in the halls or classrooms in the school. What a great way to spread literacy learning and poetry throughout the building! I'll post some more links for additional resources. 

Maine Literacy Partnership

Marcia Nye Boody, Director of the Maine Literacy Partnership from the University of Maine at Orono, visited on Wednesday. She toured the school and met teachers, students, and Steve. Marcia brings knowledge and skills about best practices with literacy learning. She shared with Steve that MLP is a partner with the University of Arkansas where Dr. Linda Dorn conducts research in lab schools and writes about the results and conclusions in many resources for teachers such as Teaching for Deeper Comprehension that describes the Reader's Workshop and other components of Balanced Literacy.

As students left at the end of the day, Marcia stopped to talk about authors and books. She asked if the students would like to have her share one of her favorite books and she told them the author was from Maine. Well, that prompted many curious questions and name dropping. Who knew these first graders knew so much about Maine authors. It was impressive.

A casual tour of the school resulted in many introductions to the friendly staff at Williams-Cone. Marcia did share that it was obvious to her that this was a school that cared about children because all classrooms were filled with focused and engaged students. I'm sure Marcia left thinking that this is a very fine school for teaching and learning! If you didn't get a chance to meet her today, I'm sure she'll be back. :-)

Instructional Read Aloud & Lester Laminack

On Friday at the University of Maine, Lester Laminack presented a passionate workshop about reading aloud in the classroom. He was an amazing presenter and retold the story of the Wizard of Oz as an opener. I was taken away by his language, underlying messages, and showmanship. 

Lester L. has written picture books and teacher resources. I have many of his books and would be happy to share. If you haven't read Saturday and Teacakes or Snow Day!, please come and borrow them. His resources offer lists and summaries of books for read alouds that build community, teach craft, inspire with strong language, and motivate children to want to hear more.

Lester believes that reading aloud should happen at least six times every day and his answer to the comment that there just isn't time in the day is that you can't afford not to. Read alouds provide much needed background knowledge for all content areas and there is a very long list of other positives that I will share later. He also says that reading aloud should inspire, invest and be intentional (planned).

There was so much more to share about the power of an instructional read aloud, so stay tuned...

LUCY CALKINS WRITING

Here's a place to talk about writing. What works! What doesn't work and maybe some ideas and/or links to answer the questions that come up. I think we can talk K-5 because the workshop format, lesson organization, and philosophy are all the same across the grades. 

I am posting a picture of the Non-Negotiables of a Writing Workshop that are in the 3-5 Units of Study. Here they are: time to write, explicit instruction, ownership of topics, write for an audience, and "Teach the writer, not the piece." I think the last one is the biggest shift in thinking. I know it was for me. I had to change from creating the perfect product to developing the skills of the writer across pieces. I was able to focus my conferences better when I remembered my goal and let go of revising and editing everything, every time.