READING WORKSHOP
Meeting all children’s needs at their own level

Mishael Hittie, M.Ed.
Southfield Public Schools

There are several components to a successful reading program that allows children of different levels to work together, and yet pushes each student to do their best. Click on links below to see a video of this component in process.

1. Instructional read aloud: A shared reading time that introduces new literature at higher levels and models comprehension strategies.

2. Reading at Individual levels (reading workshop)

3. Showing comprehension: setting individual reading goals; individual conferences with teachers, writing about a book, and discussing with other students.

4. Mini-lessons: small group work with the teacher on a specific reading strategy that needs focus once a week during reader’s workshop.

5. Student-to-student testing based on teacher-provided questions. This helps both think critically about reading.

6. Completing journals on their reading.

Getting started.

The first thing to be taught is the reader’s workshop process. At the beginning of the year I test each child on fluency and comprehension to get a general idea of their reading level. This enables me to help them learn to identify what their Just Right level is. I do NOT tell them the reading level, they learn to identify it by how many words they are unsure of on a page. A Just Right book has 2-4 on each page, no more or less.

When children get set in this cycle, the teacher divides her time between three things during the individual reading time:

1. Checking in with students about progress on due dates and paperwork.
2. Reading for 2 or 3 minutes with each student to help model comprehension strategies.
3. Meeting with one small group per day to teach a lesson on a strategy that crosses grade levels in reading

Strategy lessons in small groups.

These lessons begin after children have been reading with the teacher individually for several weeks. This allows the teacher time to identify strategies that need work. The children bring their reader’s workshop books to share how they have been working on their strategy with the group. Some examples of strategies include:

Choosing books at a 'just right' level

Reading with expression

Reading fluently, using punctuation to mark breaths and pauses

Figuring out the meaning in context of unknown words

Identifying any of the 6 comprehension strategies from Strategies That Work wit h sticky notes. These include: making connections, asking questions, visualizing, inferring, determining importance, and synthesizing

Completing paperwork that shows what they know

There are many sub strategies and skills that would develop out of any one of these groups, however decoding words should NOT be the only thing that occurs in ANY group, no matter the reading level. ALL children, not just the highest functioning need to learn to think about what they read to improve their comprehension.

Developing decoding skills (without segregation or ability grouping!).

Below are some ways that decoding skills can be addressed. It is important to remember that if a student cannot read most of the words on the page on their own, then they are not reading Just Right work.

• Identify certain sounds the whole class is struggling with and do a mini-lesson on it at the beginning of Reader’s Workshop.
• Spend a portion of the small group strategy time on sound types.
• Work for a few minutes each day individually with a student who is struggling more than others. This does not replace the other reading components.
• Ask students to search for a word type, such as an adjective or a word that ends with ‘own’, and mark them with stickies in their reading book to show you at the next strategy small group.

Mishael Hittie and Michael Peterson, 2006