Reading in the Wild Book Study: Workshop

Linking up for week two with Catherine from The Brown Bag Teacher for the Reading in the Wild book study! This week we are continuing on with Chapter 1, "Wild Readers Dedicate Time to Read." At the end of the chapter Donalyn Miller sets a section aside to focus on creating a workshop schedule that works for you.

This weeks link up is being hosted by Jivey from Ideas By Jivey and Flip-Floppin' Through 3rd Grade.

                                               

 

Miller starts the section off with the questions she asks herself every year when she is getting her workshop schedule together: How much class time do I have? Which instructional components am I required to include? What components would I like to include? What can I change to carve out time for independent reading? Remember the rule of thirds. She gives examples of her weekly reading workshop and weekly writing workshop schedule. I like how she set up her schedule and will use it to rethink / revise how I create my workshop schedule.

I follow a balanced literacy approach to reading and writing in my classroom.  My lessons are designed around a theme and genre. My mini-lessons focus on the reading and writing skills that my students need in order to become successful readers and writers. This year I really focused on having my students read and write everyday...and they did! At my school we create our own literacy units (we don't use a specific curriculum) that encompass word study, skill based mini-lessons, read aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and writing. The process at my school site is different than any other school site I have taught at. It is a lot of work gathering the resources and materials, but I saw so much growth with my students this year in comparison to previous years.

Workshop time has always been a bit of a struggle for me...implementation, planning, time, etc. This year I had an amazing group of students and was able to get through workshop better than I have in the past. I'm definitely looking forward to reading up on every one's great ideas for how they implement their workshop time. Workshop is definitely one thing I want to improve upon!

 

I will leave you with this quote I pulled from this section:

 

"Are we creating a place where reading a lot, writing a lot, and thinking a lot happen in our classrooms?"

~Donalyn Miller