What are you wondering about in terms of reading and reading instruction? What questions do you have around the ideas that have been floating around your buildings? What are you hoping to get out of being a part of this class?
Take a few minutes to do a quick write about what you are wondering about. It may end up as a list of questions or it may be that you will pose one or two questions and end up writing about them. Remember, when you do a quick write, just let your thoughts flow. This is an exercise in figuring out what you are thinking and wondering about and you may not even know until you begin writing!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I want to learn how to create better study skills for my readers in the science and social studies texts.
ReplyDeleteHow to get kids to spend the time getting info from texts.
With this class, I want to learn something new, something for me as a teacher, something for the kids as learners.
I want to hear what others are doing...what is working for them or not working for them!
I want their ideas, experiences,
My main question is how can I get to where I want to be? It’s been a long process for me to get here, but I still have a long way to go. I always felt that teaching reading was my weakest area as an educator. I never looked forward to my reading block and was really bored to tell you the truth. Since reading Strategies That Work and In The Company of Children all this has changed. I now look forward to my reading block and enjoy the discussions that I have with my students just like real readers do. This year I have begun using the reading workshop model to teach the strategies. It’s not as smooth as I would like it to be and I still have difficulty fitting the model in each day, but it’s a start. From this class I would like to become more comfortable using the reading workshop model while teaching the reading strategies. My next question is why do I have such a hard time evaluating my students? The assessment process is really challenging for me. I do running records and have conferences with my students and then ask myself what’s next? I never really have an answer to this. So in this class I would also like to work more on evaluating my assessments.
ReplyDeleteIn thinking about the ideas that have been floating around our building and district I am curious about how some of them work in the classroom setting. As a reader, Reading Workshop seems like a good idea, especially for the kids that are competent readers. Getting to read a book that a student wants to read, not what I choose for him or her to read seems like a great thing. As a teacher, I am afraid of what seems like a loss of control. Having 28 students read 28 different books really makes me nervous! That is because of the assessment piece…do you just let the kids go crazy reading, but how do you know what their progress is? How do you know they are really reading? What about spelling and vocabulary? What about grades? I’m interested in finding out the details of how this is done.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited about setting up a reader's workshop in my class, but it's also a little overwhelming. Just trying to organize my classroom and my selection of books to create an appealing atmosphere conducive to reading has been challenging. I have read a great deal of literature about Reader's Workshop and am very excited about introducing the concept to my students. Since I usually tend to rush into a project, I need to use caution in order to assure that it will be successful. My goal is to be comfortable with all aspects of Reader's Workshop
ReplyDeleteReading and writing instruction has always been my favorite part of the day. It still is, but I am fnding that every baby step I take towards getting to where I want to be promotes more questions as to how to get there. I have made progress in managing both the physical aspects of my classroom (books, buckets, reading areas, bean bag chairs, etc) and some expectations for my students. But I continue to wonder how to make sure each student stays engaged and on task. How can I manage my time so that I can meet with more students each day? I love the idea of my reading instruction being more child-centered and child-driven. But how do I work in my McGraw-Hill components? Is it okay that I still want to use the spelling and vocabulary lists that are provided? Does it make sense to conduct guided reading lessons around the core stories? I am hoping that this class leads me to the answers to some of these questions. I'm looking forward to it!
ReplyDeleteI hope to learn how to group my students and structure my reading time so that everyone's needs are met. I really need to see this Reader's Workshop in action. Reading about it doesn't help as much. I worry and wonder how my lowest, struggling readers will get their needs met. Will they get enough direct instruction from me and enough meaningful practice? It feels like a big load for now, but I wonder if my job will ultimately become easier when children have all these choices of what to read and these big blocks of time in which to read? And exactly where do these big blocks of time come from?? Do children have to be accountable for finishing books, or just reading? When and how do you fit in assessments of decoding skills and fluency so it can inform your planning and instruction? We are asking kids to be different kinds of readers...can we expect parents to know how to help? How do we instruct the parents? I'm just starting to get some of the strategy teaching under my belt...I'm worried about how it all falls into place. I'm sure this class will answer a lot of my concerns.
ReplyDeleteReading and Writing were always my favorite subjects in school and thus, they are my favorite subjects to teach. I realize that not every student feels the same way, but I try my best to bring that energy into every literacy lesson. When I did my internship 2.5 years ago, I learned how to teach language arts based on a reading and writing workshop program; therefore I feel very comfortable teaching my literacy program using that model. With this being my first year teaching 5th grade I have learned a lot and made many adjustments to my teaching styles, since my experience had previously been with younger children.
ReplyDeleteSome things I have struggled with have been finding an assessment that tells me what reading level my students are at. I am just beginning to build my classroom library but I would like to organize it in a way that students can pick books of their interest that are also at their level.
Most of my students are very good at staying on task during independent reading time but I am also struggling with what to do with those students who currently are not reading at a 5th grade level. The proficient readers seem to benefit greatly from our focus lessons and can apply the knowledge we've discussed to their reading; however there are several students who just don't seem to get it because they are so far behind. How do we catch those students up?
I have also been using running records and conferencing notes to assess my students' reading but what type of assessment can I do to give them an actual grade and documentation for the report card? These all questions I hope to get answered by taking this class as well as by speaking to my fellow peers.
Jessica
I am wondering what all of this will actually look like in my classroom. I love teaching the strategies to my students through reading aloud, thinking aloud, and group discussion, but I have trouble with releasing responsibility to my first grade students. I love the strategies lesson itself, but I feel lost when letting them "off the carpet" to work more independently. What does Readers' Workshop look like when most of the students can not read yet? How do I make sure that all of my students are actively engaged in meaningful reading while working independently? How do I best organize my classroom library so that students can choose interesting texts at an appropriate level? How do I fit the phonics lessons that my students need as they learn to read into this model? I am looking forward to hearing and seeing what other teachers are doing in their classrooms and establishing some concrete next steps that I can take in my own classroom.
ReplyDeleteI am really excited about this new way of teaching reading. I love all the material I have read on Reader's Workshop and I wish my classroom could be like Debbie Miller's. However, how do you even set up Reader's Workshop? Where do you begin? How do you find time to incorporate Reader's Workshop, Math, Science, Social Studies and everything else we need to do? Will my first graders really be actively engaged in Reader's Workshop? How can I keep them engaged? The other thing I worry about is having enough resources and quality books for my students. How do I organize my books? I also lack the blocks of time required for reader's workshop. I only have two 90 minute block a week. Where do I find the time to do Reader's Workshop? I am looking forward to talking to other teachers about their concerns and worries. I also want to hear what other teachers are doing in their classrooms already. I am excited to take as much as I can from this class and share and talk with my collegues.
ReplyDeleteI feel that most of the teachers are on the same page as far as reading instruction in my building. I have students for just a short time as a Title I teacher and I want to be able to complement what the classroom teachers are teaching. I am hoping to be able to implement new teaching skills given the student population that I service. My students are for the most part nonreaders working on letter and sound recognition and working toward blending and developing some sight word recognition at this point in time. I am wondering if the best use of newly acquired skills would be to utilize them while working with students when in the classroom supporting the classroom teacher.
ReplyDeleteThere are many things that I am still wondering about in terms of reading and reading instruction. If I think long and hard about it, I'd say that my biggest concern is planning cohesive units of study that incorporate both the reading strategies and the content that is outlined in our curriculum maps. I want everything to tie together in a neat little package and I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I think that Reading Workshop is extremely valuable to both my students and myself as a teacher of reading, but I'm struggling with fitting everything in. I'd like to be able to sit with teachers who are knowledgeable of teaching reading this way and plan out some units together. I have a hard time doing it in a day by day way or one strategy at a time. I definitely think that there is a lot to gain by having teachers collaborate and plan together. The other thing that I am struggling with is my conferencing and guided reading groups during the independent reading portion of Reading Workshop. To be honest, I'm scared. I am by no means an expert and I am overwhelmed by the whole thing. I know that conferencing and guided reading groups are a very important part of the Reading Workshop Model, as it provides the teacher with valuable information about her students; I just don't know how best to organize it, and since I like to be organized and have everything planned out that poses a problem. When you conference or hold a guided reading group, you can only plan so much, the rest needs to come to you in a short amount of time while the conference or lesson is happening. I guess what scares me about that is I don't feel like I would know what to say or what course of action to take on the spur of the moment. So I hesitate and end up starting, then stopping. I know that I need to just jump in there and that by doing it I will get better and learn more, but I put all this pressure on myself to be "perfect" and to not mess up. I guess what I need is someone to stand by me and coach me along in these areas. I know I can do it, but it's nice to have someone there supporting you along the way. Someone to support you when you do well and when you mess up, because there is no "perfect". I'd also like to learn more about students as readers in terms of what to look for when planning guided reading groups and conferring with readers. Also, what about word study (spelling/vocab instruction)? How does that fit into the Reading Workshop? Most of all, I am hoping that this class will give me a chance to collaborate more often with my colleagues on reading instruction and provide me with the means for helping my students become better readers...
ReplyDeleteI have really enjoyed the exploration of the comprehension strategies. I felt a surge of awareness and excitement in my own abilities as a reader. The lessons I have done with my students have been wonderful. Now to put everything together into Reading workshop...HOW? My biggest questions are about management. How do I manage my time to be most effective? How do I manage my students to make sure everyone is getting the absolute most out of their reading? How do I conduct a quick but effective conference? I am really concerned about meeting the needs of my students who read below grade level. What about spelling and grammar? How do I fit that into the program? I am just VERY unsure of how to put it all together.
ReplyDeleteI wish to know how I can help the students in my program access their specialized instruction needs within the regular classroom. Some of the stuents that I work with suffer from poor self esteem. They shut down in the regular classroom due to their insecurity about not knowing as much as everyone else.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to learn strategies to help the students go from only concrete, black and white concepts to more abstract or inferential meaning.
I am quite lucky, as a title one teacher, to be working with such smaller groups of learners. Working with students in small groups has its challenges, but I have the benefit of really getting to know these students as readers. I also have the chance to try out different strategies and techniques within these smaller groups without the distraction of the other 20ish students in class. (I love it, but I don't make the "big bucks" like the rest of you.) At times, I struggle through when attempting to try out something new even in my small groups. I can only imagine that I would have many of the same concerns the rest of the group has if I were working within a classroom environment.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering how I can find the time to fit reader's workshop as well as work stations into my morning. I've begun to use reader's workshop in my classroom but I had to cut down from having workstations 3 times a week to only 1 time a week. I still am unsure about the scheduling. As I watch Debbie Miller's videos of her classroom, I become some envious. How can I get my students to where her students are? ALL of them are on task and working so well together. It amazes me! I would like to learn the appropriate mini lessons to get my students to this point.
ReplyDelete