You asked how I determine what my students are doing during reading workshop. That is a big question that is best addressed based on the needs of your students, but I will attempt to explain how I manage what the students are doing my classroom during reading workshop. First of all, I assume you are referring to the individualized daily reading component of reading workshop time. After the 10 minute mini-lesson, I refer to the next 40-45 minutes as individualized daily reading (IDR). It is during this time that students may be reading independently, meeting with the teacher for guided reading or strategy groups, taking part in reading partnerships or book clubs, or having a one-on-one conference with me.
What students are doing during IDR depends on a few things. I’ll try to explain below.
1. Time of Year
At the beginning of the school year, I am doing Fountas and Pinnell's benchmark reading assessments, so all students are reading independently (and completing short reading tasks) while I am testing one student at a time.
Once I have completed my assessments, students are given goals based on our CAFE menu. (To read more about CAFE, click here: http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/department45.cfm ). Once students have a CAFÉ goal, I really start working with them individually in one-on-one reading conferences and in strategy groups if multiple students are working toward the same goal. So, for the first couple of months, I tend to do a mix of individual conferring and strategy groups.
Once I get to know my readers well and we determine a "just right" reading level, I start adding guided reading groups to the mix. I do not abandon strategy lessons and conferring, but guided reading now becomes another way I can instruct and teach new strategies to my students while reinforcing skills and concepts I am teaching in my mini-lessons.
Here is an example of what a week might look like in my classroom in November:
Monday:
-2 guided reading groups (12-15 minutes each)
-Confer with 3 students
Friday
-1 guided reading group (12-15 minutes)
-Confer with 5-6 students
2. Current Unit of Study
Depending on the unit of study, students are often involved in different activities during IDR time. For example, they are working in reading partnerships during our reading partnership unit and in book clubs during our mystery unit and author study unit. During our nonfiction unit, I tend to do more guided reading groups to expose them to more "just right" nonfiction texts that contain a variety of text features and text structures. During our research unit, I find myself conferring the majority of the time since students are researching different topics.
3. Student Needs
Every year your class probably looks very different. When I have a large number of “high” readers, I find that I need to do less guided reading and more strategy lessons or conferring to push them to challenge them. When I have more low readers, I want to see them more often. For that reason, I am more likely to do more guided reading and strategy lessons so that I can provide instruction to more readers at one time.
Whenever students are not meeting with me (or with their reading partners or in book clubs), they are simply reading self-selected texts reading from their book boxes and working on using the strategy I taught in the mini-lesson that day. I hope I've helped answer your questions!
Ashley (comment #4),
You asked how I determine what my students are doing during reading workshop. That is a big question that is best addressed based on the needs of your students, but I will attempt to explain how I manage what the students are doing my classroom during reading workshop. First of all, I assume you are referring to the individualized daily reading component of reading workshop time. After the 10 minute mini-lesson, I refer to the next 40-45 minutes as individualized daily reading (IDR). It is during this time that students may be reading independently, meeting with the teacher for guided reading or strategy groups, taking part in reading partnerships or book clubs, or having a one-on-one conference with me.
What students are doing during IDR depends on a few things. I’ll try to explain below.
1. Time of Year
At the beginning of the school year, I am doing Fountas and Pinnell's benchmark reading assessments, so all students are reading independently (and completing short reading tasks) while I am testing one student at a time.
Once I have completed my assessments, students are given goals based on our CAFE menu. (To read more about CAFE, click here: http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/department45.cfm ). Once students have a CAFÉ goal, I really start working with them individually in one-on-one reading conferences and in strategy groups if multiple students are working toward the same goal. So, for the first couple of months, I tend to do a mix of individual conferring and strategy groups.
Once I get to know my readers well and we determine a "just right" reading level, I start adding guided reading groups to the mix. I do not abandon strategy lessons and conferring, but guided reading now becomes another way I can instruct and teach new strategies to my students while reinforcing skills and concepts I am teaching in my mini-lessons.
Here is an example of what a week might look like in my classroom in November:
Monday:
-2 guided reading groups (12-15 minutes each)
-Confer with 3 students
Tuesday:
-2 guided reading groups (12-15 minutes each)
-1 strategy lesson (10 minutes)
Wednesday:
2 guided reading groups (12 minutes each)
-Confer with 3 students
Thursday
-2 guided reading groups (12-15 minutes each)
-1 strategy lesson (10 minutes)
Friday
-1 guided reading group (12-15 minutes)
-Confer with 5-6 students
2. Current Unit of Study
Depending on the unit of study, students are often involved in different activities during IDR time. For example, they are working in reading partnerships during our reading partnership unit and in book clubs during our mystery unit and author study unit. During our nonfiction unit, I tend to do more guided reading groups to expose them to more "just right" nonfiction texts that contain a variety of text features and text structures. During our research unit, I find myself conferring the majority of the time since students are researching different topics.
3. Student Needs
Every year your class probably looks very different. When I have a large number of “high” readers, I find that I need to do less guided reading and more strategy lessons or conferring to push them to challenge them. When I have more low readers, I want to see them more often. For that reason, I am more likely to do more guided reading and strategy lessons so that I can provide instruction to more readers at one time.
Whenever students are not meeting with me (or with their reading partners or in book clubs), they are simply reading self-selected texts reading from their book boxes and working on using the strategy I taught in the mini-lesson that day. I hope I've helped answer your questions!
-Beth