Reader's Workshop

I envision Reader's Workshop as a great way of managing reading instruction instead of workbooks and worksheets. As stated in the article, "Organizing for Effective Instruction: The Reading Workshop,"Osborn, Wilson, and Anderson remind us that workbook and worksheet pages provide only prefuntory levels of reading practice. I envision Reader's Workshop as a time for to students to have ownership of their time. Through reading workshops, students should be given the opportunities to make choices about how they will spend their reading time. This workshop is a time for reading to be a primary activity incorportaed with other language modes such as writing, speaking and listening. Also, it is a time where teachers can model to students the importance of reading. Regular demonstrations of reading strategies are essential for an effective reading workshop to take place. I envision reader's workshop consisting of five main components: sharing time, the mini lesson, state-of-the-class, self-selected reading and response, and sharing time once more. In reader's workshop, sharing time includes teacher's sharing new discoveries they have made in literature. This will help to encourage students to look into various literary genres for free reading time. I see the role of mini-lessons as short and whole group instructional sessions for demonstrating reading strategies and preparing students to read new books both successfully and independently. While avoiding the use of worksheets made as a the primary means of practice, mini-lessons allow for teacher's to fulfill local curriculum mandates in regards to student performance (goals/objectives). Another role for mini-lessons is in prereading activities. This aims to have students recall past experiences before reading inorder to enhance reading comprehension. The activities in mini lessons prior to reading help teacher's create a stronger and more positive atmosphere for their students.  Overall, topics for mini-lessons are usually taken from what students need more of (as seen in their individual reading conferences), teacher-selected skills, and prereading activities to help students with new books they choose to read in their literature response groups. State-of-the-class, another component of reading workshop structure, is one I envision that informs the teacher and individual students of their responsibilties and progress during the workshop period. From this component, children develop a sense of responsibility through simple record keeping. This also provides the teacher with information regarding daily student activity. Self-selected reading and response involves three student activities in reading workshop: self-selected reading, literature response, and individual reading conferences. Lastly, I envision reader's workshop to close with an activity in which sharing with the teacher and other peers is essential for a few minutes, whether it is an activity, project or book. I believe student involvement is a major aspect of reading workshop which also allows for students to have a sense of taking control of their own reading instruction. Overall, the flexibility of reading workshops aids in organizing for effectvie reading instruction.