ALICE ENSLEYDALTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

PRIMARY DISTRICT TRAINER FOR LITERACY COLLABORATIVE

ALICE.ENSLEY@DALTON.K12.GA.US

Intentional Teaching in a K-2 Readers’ Workshop

Goals for this session:

Review the structure of a Readers’ Workshop

Define the purpose and role of reading minilessons in a K-2 Readers’ Workshop.

Describe what makes for effective reading minilessons in the primary grades.

Connect the CCGPS, the interactive read aloud section of The Continuum of Literacy Learning and The Prompting Guide 2 to plan explicit reading minilessons.

A Language and Literacy Framework: Time

Three Blocks

Readers’ Workshop Writers’ WorkshopLanguage and

Word Study

The Advantages of Readers’ Workshop

Students read extensively. (Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding, 1988)

Students take responsibility for their reading and understand its purpose in their lives. (Atwell, 1987.1998)

The structure of Readers’ Workshop makes it possible top use time efficiently and intentionally to assure maximum student engagement and learning. (Education Development Center Grade 3-6 Classroom Impact Study, 2002-2004)

…and levels of support

Building an Effective Reading

Process

Interactive Read Aloud

Above grade level text

Shared Reading

Above grade level text

Guided Reading

Instructional level text

Independent ReadingIndependent

level text

Interactive Read Aloud

Reading is Thinking:

Within the text

Beyond the text

About the text

Readers’ Workshop

Whole Group Minilesson

5-10 minutes

Guided Reading (40 minutes)

Independent Reading/MIL (40 minutes)

Readers’ Workshop

Readers’ Workshop

Share

(5-10 minutes)

Connecting Our Standards to a Reading Minilesson

CCGPS RL2.7: Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

Continuum Goal for Second Grade: Infer characters feelings and motivations from description, what they do or say, and what others think about them.

Language from Prompting Guide 2: (page 23) “What do you think this character really meant by saying that?” (Implicit teaching)

Minilesson Principle: “Think about what characters say and what their words really mean. This will help you understand the characters true feelings.” (Explicit teaching)

Mini Lessons

Readers_________________________________________________in order to ________________________________________________________.

K-2 Minilessons

“Think about the problem in the story.”

“You can notice who is telling the story.

“When I read I try to think about what the author is really trying to say.”

Thinking Across a Text Set to Plan Minilessons

“Think about what characters do and why they do it. This will help you understand the character better.”

Minilesson Planning:

What will be my focus?

What will be my minilesson statement?

What mentor texts will I use?

How will my students “try it out”?

How will we share our learning?

Interactive Read Aloud Minilesson

An example

Guided Practice Independent Practice

An Example

Independent Practice Share

An example

TAPS Domains and Standards

PLANNING

Professional KnowledgeInstructional Planning

INSTRUCTIONAL DELIVERY

Instructional StrategiesDifferentiated Instruction

ASSESSMENT OF AND FOR LEARNING

Assessment StrategiesAssessment Uses

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Positive Learning Environment

PROFESSIONALISM AND COMMUNICATION

ProfessionalismCommunication

Reflection

“Minilessons are brief, highly focused group lessons that help readers learn more about any aspect of an effective processing system. The goal of all reading workshop minilessons is to help children become independent readers for life, functioning as fully literate people in today’s world.”

T,C,&F p. 353

How will you use reading minilessons at your grade level to support your students’ thinking?