Reader's Workshop

After reading Ellin Keene's book To Understand, I changed the name of my Language Arts class to literacy workshop.  My day is designed with 1 1/2-2 hours of literacy and 30-45 minutes of direct instruction for social studies. Often times my social studies reading is embedded within my literacy block. My students write every day and have mini-lessons in reading and writing. My first novel of the year is Frindle by Andrew Clements. I will draw upon the First 20 Days from Fountas and Pinnell's Guided Reading and Writing and review the comprehension strategies and really stress to my students that reading is not a passive activity, but one that is full of thinking and engagement. 

I am very lucky to have a district that puts thinking first and my students have been working on reading comprehension strategies for many years. Usually, I preassess each strategy prior to teaching it then begin my  the strategy lessons.  This year I plan to assess before I even begin my quick overview of the strategies.I haven't finalized my pre-assessment, but I know it will have some of these questions.

1. What does it mean when you are asked to visualize while you read?
2. What are the ways you make connections to the text?
3. What do you do when you don't understand what you are reading?
4. What is an inference?
5. Why is it important to ask questions as you read?
6. What does it mean to think while you read?
7. How do you feel about yourself as a reader when you read?

Some mini-lessons that I plan on teaching the first week of school are

• Just Right Books: How to use the Goldilocks Method
• How to Keep a Reading Log
• Fix Up Strategies when I Lose My Way
• Silent Reading Expectations