This resource provides teachers with planning tools and flexible, easy-to-use lesson plans to begin implementing the reader's Workshop instructional model in their classrooms. Lessons are provided for establishing procedures for strong classroom management, building beginning reading skills, and supporting students at all levels. The included ZIP file provides customizable planning materials so that teachers can immediately implement lessons. 184 pages

Strategies and activities to develop an effective reading workshop program.

In Welcome to Reading Workshop: Structures and Routines that Support All Readers, Brenda Krupp and Lynne Dorfman bring their years of collective experience leading successful reading workshops to showcase the structures, routines, rituals, and behind-the-scenes decision making that will have your reading workshop running smoothly and effectively. Within the pages, you’ll find ways to effectively use self-selected reading materials, create mini-lessons, build time for reading conferences and small group work, and use assessments to guide instruction. In this practical guide, you’ll find tips and ideas to make these techniques immediately attainable, including: Recommendation lists from much loved books to classroom implementation suggestions Easy to access video clips to extend learning Expert contributions and tips from the field A rich appendix with templates, lessons, and resources Reflection questions to promote collegial conversations Whether you’re a brand-new teacher or seasoned veteran, you’re looking to try something new or working on refining your current reading workshops, the authors welcome you to join them in an exploration of this powerful instructional model. Welcome to Reading Workshop will inspire you and your students with an excitement for reading that fosters engagement and builds life-long readers.

The writing/reading connection means more than having your students write under the influence of literature that they have read! Noted author and educator Connie Campbell Dierking shows you how to develop a literacy-connected classroom, including using oral storytelling to scaffold primary reading and writing. She supplies more than 50 mini-lessons--organized by their classroom function--to help you explicitly teach foundational literacy skills during writer's workshop or whole-class and small-group reading instruction. Dierking encourages you to make the most of the writing/reading connection by thinking about some basic questions when you're crafting your literacy instruction: How can I connect the conversations in reading and writing workshop? What can I learn about the readers in my classroom through their writing? What can my students learn about reading through writing? How can I teach young writers to support their readers? How can I teach readers how to use a writer's supports intentionally?

Primary-grade teachers face an important challenge: teaching children how to read while enabling them to build good habits so they fall in love with reading. Many teachers find the independent reading workshop to be the component of reading instruction that meets this challenge because it makes it possible to teach the reading skills and strategies children need and guides them toward independence, intention, and joy as readers. In Growing Readers, Kathy Collins helps teachers plan for independent reading workshops in their own classrooms. She describes the structure of the independent reading workshop and other components of a balanced literacy program that work together to ensure young students grow into strong, well-rounded readers. Kathy outlines a sequence of possible units of study for a yearlong curriculum. Chapters are devoted to the individual units of study and include a sample curriculum as well as examples of mini-lessons and reading conferences. There are also four "Getting Ready" sections that suggest some behind-the-scenes work teachers can do to prepare for the units. Topics explored in these units include:print and comprehension strategies;reading in genres such as poetry and nonfiction;connecting in-school reading and out-of-school reading;developing the strategies and habits of lifelong readers. A series of planning sheets and management tips are presented throughout to help ensure smooth implementation. We want our students to learn to read, and we want them to love to read. To do this we need to lay a foundation on which children build rich and purposeful reading lives that extend beyond the school day. The ideas found in Growing Readers create the kind of primary classrooms where that happens.

In his workshops with teachers over the years, Patrick Allen has encountered a long list of "counterfeit beliefs" about the process of conferring with students, including such comments as: "I don't have time. I don't know what questions to ask, It's too hard, I don't know what to write in my notes, I don't even take notes, I don't know how to go deep. . ." In Conferring: The Keystone of Reader's Workshop, Allen argues that the benefits of conferring are well-worth the effort of learning to do it well. And then he sets out to show teachers how to overcome all of their perceived obstacles, and make the somewhat intangible aspect of conferring tangible. Just as the keystone--a symmetrical, wedge-shaped stone at the center of an arch--forms the foundation of a structure, conferring lays the groundwork for effective reading instruction. Allen defines the word confer as a verb "meaning to consult together, compare opinions, or carry on a conversation." Conferences with students are purposeful conversations that scaffold reading comprehension strategies that guide the reader's progress, and ultimately, through the gradual release of responsibility, create independent readers. Allen begins by explaining what conferring is and what it's not, and then unpacks the essential components of the process: intimacy (the social context of conferring); rigor (the cognitive context); and inquiry (the analytical context). He explores the guiding principles of conferring--including goal setting, instruction points, listening, rapport, challenges, and teacher learning--and provides questions that lead teachers through the reader's conference from start to finish.

Providing practical, research-based strategies for various aspects of literacy education, this text supplies guidance for providing direct instruction in phonics, using authentic texts, building word recognition, strengthening comprehension, and implementing writing across the curriculum.