Reading Workshop: Reading and More Reading.

What is a teacher to do?

       Teachers have to make time for kids to be able to Read in class. So what is a teacher to do to make sure students are doing more Independent Reading than sitting and listing to the teacher talk?  What needs to happen?  What do I need?  Where do I start?

      I have learned  come to learn that a Mini lesson is just that a Mini lesson only meant to be 10 minutes.  I had and still have a hard time sticking to  ten minutes.  I have had timers over the years not to use them, or reset them because I felt I needed to get my point across.  Yet,  after many Professional Development  classes.  I realize that most of a teachers teaching should be through Small Group Instruction or through Conferring.

     I have come to realize this  is a hard task.  I have to make a conscious effort daily do to this.  Our team is doing a different type of switching this year, where we all have to be ready to switch at the designated time or your throwing someones instructional time off.  So with three rotations, I have to be strategic with my planning and implementation of those plans.   So the pro side of this, I have to stick to my schedule.  The con side of this, I have to stick to my schedule. Therefore,  I have to be very conscious of my time this year.

How do I do this you ask?

      I look at the Learning Targets of my Reading and Writing curriculum and think about how best to insure that the target is introduced, modeled and practice during the mini lesson.

      I make sure that I practice the lesson and actually time myself.  If necessary I prune somethings.  I may even video tape it and watch it to see how I am presenting the material.  My daughter thinks I am crazy.  Every weekend this is my routine,  she enters my area because she hears me talking and wonders what I am doing.  She ask questions and throw me off, so I tend to draft her for the student body.  She now ignores me when she hears me talking to myself.  However, as she is older now she is able to time me and tell me if I sound like I am rambling or being specific.  I tell her what my point is and she tells me if I relayed it.  I still watch the video though.  So if you need to practice your presentations these are a few ways to do so.

       I often find I am too wordy or doing to much talking and need to involve the kids more especially during writing and I am able to re plan.  Now, do I do this all the time?  No.  I can't say that I do. Another way that I try to tell if  I am within my time frame is I think about the concept.  If it is concepts such as Main Idea, Inferring  and Summarizing.  I have to know that this will not be masted in one day. For that matter, as teachers we have to realize that none of our content is mastered in one setting.  Some are not master in a week.  It is like a cycle with no beginning or ending.  You will always come back to the topic.  I say this to give you comfort and let you know it is okay to move on to the next skill or strategy before everyone is able to master one. I say all this to tell you that I a had to re adjust my teaching style to make more time for what is important, providing time for kids to read in class independently.

      The goal of Reading and Writing workshop is for students to spend the bulk of the time Reading or Writing.  So once teachers have present the mini lesson, sent the students to try what they have taught. That  is when the real teaching begins.  You observe, you intervene and model, you pull small groups and you teach the student not the content.

       So to build a students Reading life you have to expose them to books and your own reading life.  The classroom library is the most important tool in your classroom.  You need to have a variety of books for students to choose from and read.  Make sure to give students opportunities to explore the library as well as let them help label some of the book baskets. There are a lot of things I teach, model, practice and discuss in order to get Independent Reading started.

Such as
1.     The difference between Fake Reading vs
         Real Reading
2.      How to choose books?
3.      How to use the library?
4.      How to build Stamina and endurance?
5.      How to read with accuracy and fluency?
6.      How to Read with intensity?
7.      How to monitor their understanding of
         what they read?
8.      What to do at point of confusing?
9.      How to figure out confusing words?
10.     Making book recommendations
11.     Share my own Reading life
12.     Setting Reading Goals with plan of
         actions
13.     Doing weekly reflections using Reading
          goals and logs
14.     What does Independent Reading look like
          and sound like?
15.      Purpose and use of Reading Nooks

          My first goal though is to make sure that students are  independently reading daily for at least 20 minutes a day.  Which is what it usually ends up being at the beginning of the year,  I say this because at the beginning you are setting up routines and procedures, organizing supplies and trying to get to know your students.  It is important to get to know them if you want to  be able to help them become strong readers.  I do a lot of Read Alouds where I model expected reading behaviors of students.  I have the kids discuss what they notice I do as a Reader and we create an anchor chart of their responses.  We do eventually build from 20 minutes to 25 then 30.  We stay at 30 for a while because we began to get further into the curriculum and sometimes the Mini lesson goes 15 minutes.  I want to make an effort to pull 2 or 3 groups a day regardless of the length of the lesson.

So why small groups?

        Small groups allow you to gear your teaching toward the student and not the curriculum.  It is more focused and individualized.  I Base my groups on Formal and Informal assessments, student journals, reading logs and anecdotal notes you have a clear understanding of what each child needs, so your able to create specific lessons to meet those needs. Your small groups can be Guided or Strategy depending on the needs of the student and the grade level.  Most research says that Guided Reading ends at third grade.  However, I don't know about you but I have kids that  come to me on varying Reading levels.  I have found myself having readers on a Second grade level in the Fourth grade.

       As a new teacher,  I didn't know how to handle this, school didn't prepare you for this straight out of college.  However over the years,  I've learned that you go pull materials from those grade levels.  I literally go look at the Reading curriculum of the grade level I need.  I meet them where they are currently and scaffold to get them where they need to be or at work to ensure one years growth.  Don't be scared to go down to the lover grade levels and ask for resources.  Our curriculum is on line, so if I need material for my below level students I have access to it.  These students I meet with daily. However, don't forget they need to read independently as well.  The rest of the students I meet with are strategy groups, based on data or even mini lessons I notice they fail to grasp.

     Another thing teachers need to make sure they do daily is  confer with readers. Make sure to reach at least every student every week.  I shoot for 5-7 conferences and 2  groups most times.   I  allow them to discuss and share books because they can learn and grow as readers with each other.  This is the perfect time to provide a teaching point with students, listen in for oral reading, ask questions about books their are reading, assess where they are in regards to monitoring of their reading goals.

      As they get ready to independently read, I teach them that readers always have a stack of books close by to waiting to be read. I demonstrate this by showing kids my own reading life basket.  In my  display area I have baskets of books  I am reading, want to read, want to read again.   I talk about my stacks that are around my house. I let them explore how I monitor my understanding of what I read.  They are able to see how I write  and underline in my books.  We discuss why I do this and then set expectations that they will do this in journals or sticky notes not directly in the books.

        Reading, Reading and More Reading

       I connect how important Reading is to their lives.  I demonstrate my passion for books using my own Reading life,  through Read Alouds, book trailers and asking others to come share their reading lives.  We created a Reading Record board and talked about monitoring the number of books we read monthly.  Although I want them to read for the love of reading, we have a competition between rotations now to see who can read the most books or recommend the most books in class.  I hope to involve parents  as well.  I will be starting Scholastic Book orders soon so kids can buy books this year.
My goal is to provide as many opportunities as possible for students to access books, I even hit up my daughter's library in her bedroom with her approval and added books to the treasure box.

How do you plan to engage students in Independent Reading daily so that they will want to always be Reading?