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Reading Workshop

Reading Workshop is a powerful way to structure your reading class. By allowing your students to choose their own books, you can foster a love of reading that will last a lifetime. Research shows that when children spend more time reading, they become better readers. With a little guidance and encouragement from a teacher who loves to read, students can learn to select appropriate books and discover joy in reading.  

I learned about this approach from a variety of different professional books on this topic. These books are terrific even if you don't use the Reading Workshop approach.

Empowering Readers Learning Community 

Because I've had such great success with this approach, I'm writing my own book on about how to implement Reading Workshop. It's shaping up to be a "Quick Start Guide" rather than a comprehensive book. To learn how you can read the early drafts of this book and become a part of a private discussion group, visit the Empowering Readers Learning Community page. You can also download a preview of the first 10 pages of the book to see what it's all about.

What might a Reading Workshop look like?

Note: Printing or viewing the printables at the bottom of this page would be helpful before reading the information below.

My Reading Workshop consists of a 10-15 minute mini-lesson on a particular strategy, followed by independent reading time. Students read books or magazines of their choice. Each day I meet with 5 or 6 different students and hold individual reading conferences. I have them quietly read a part of their book to me and I talk with them about the strategy we are working on for the week. I record my impressions on a Reading Conference Record form I designed for this purpose. Students are also expected to read at home and record their reading on their Home Reading Log. The Reading Bingo form can be used to encourage students to read a variety of books. Students record book titles on the chart as they read them and attempt to create a row, column, diagonal, or even the whole thing! The 40-Book Challenge chart is another excellent way to encourage your students to select books from different genres.

How might reading progress be evaluated?

When I was using the Accelerated Reader program I used a Reading Rubric as part of my evaluation system. I used the AR program very flexibly, and if a student had a strong aversion to AR, we worked out another plan for accountability. I didn't require them to read books on a certain level, but I did encourage them to challenge themselves.

This year I'm using AR so I'll be using other ways to evaluate their reading progress. In the past I have had students write letters to me about what they were reading, make journal entries, and create graphic organizers. These items can serve as informal assessments of student progress.

Is this program effective?

A few years ago, I conducted an Action Research project during the first nine weeks of school to determine the effectiveness of this program. During that time, I used a Reading Rubric to evaluate student progress and assign grades. This rubric was used every 3 weeks and was completed during a short conference with the student. As often found in Action Research projects, I did not use a control group because I wanted all my students to benefit from the program. Instead, I administered two different reading pretests and posttests. I was excited to find that both tests showed growth in reading.

I realize that this research project was based on a small number of students (20) in an isolated classroom and did not involve a control group. Therefore, the results should not be considered conclusive in any way. However, I feel that this method definitely has merit! I've been using it this year (2009-2010) and my students are scoring well above the district on their quarterly Benchmark tests.

Free Reading Workshop Printables:

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