Readers' Workshop
Readers' Workshop
Each
student in class maintains a Readers' Workshop notebook which is housed
in the classroom. This is a place where we track specific reading
behaviors and specific craft lessons learned in class. This is also a
place where we track books read, books abandoned, books to read someday,
and personal reflections on words, phrases and entire works.
Students
should be reading books of their own choosing every night.
Self-selected sustained reading is proven to be the most effective
method of improving reading and writing. The background knowledge gained
from reading provides connections that can be used in all subjects.
Reading
includes all genres. Newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals are
more than acceptable reading materials. Reading of any kind leads to
more reading. You will find that students are more likely to read longer
selections if they find success in shorter selections first. Don't
discourage any type of reading, it's all good.
Writers' Workshop
Writers' Workshop
Your
child should already have their Writer's Notebook set up. You will
notice that each child has numbered only the right hand pages. The left
hand pages are left blank and used for editing and rewriting purposes
only.
Students
will often be freewriting in their notebooks. Freewriting is the
process of writing without stopping for a given amount of time. Thoughts
in a freewrite may be incomplete, disconnected, or unrelated. The
purpose of the Freewrite is not to produce a finished piece, but rather
to harvest ideas for future finished pieces.
Students
also have an editing section of their notebooks. This section is a
place for students to keep track of editing mini-lessons. It is also a
place for the students to try out new writing conventions as we learn
them.
One
section of the notebook has been dedicated to Spelling Demons. This is a
place for students to keep track of their personal spelling issues and
work to correct them in their own writing.
This
is an example of a poster we have hanging in our classroom. This lesson
can probably be found on either page 31 or 32 of the Writer's Notebook.
Students are required to copy this information, then an example of the
writing convention. They are then required to try this convention on
their own.