Book Study: A Guide to the Reading Workshop, Chapter 1

For those that want to follow along with our current book study, but are not able to attend...

A Guide to the Reading Workshop: Primary Grades by Lucy Calkins

What are the BIG ideas in Chapter 1: First Things First?

“You cannot create what you cannot imagine.”

• Too many children are not learning to love to read. The longer kids stay in school, the less they like to read!

• What are the conditions that make reading bad for you?  What makes reading good?  It's the same for kids!

• Large, for-profit companies with core reading programs are not the answer.  We have 50 years of research saying packaged programs do NOT work.

• The most important thing we can do to lift student achievement is to support the professional development and retention of good teachers.

• Students need to spend most of their time reading in books that are just right.  We will not close the reading gap by having students read grade level text that is beyond their reach.

• We must model the professional learning as adults that we want in our classrooms.

Next assignment for 11-19-15: Chapter 2 - Follow the rest of this book study on Live from the Creek, Chets Creek's professional development blog.  A synopsis of each chapter will be posted that reflects the text and the conversation.

Reading with a Partner

One of the rituals and routines that we establish early in the kindergarten year is working with partners.  In reading we ask that students sit knee-to-knee and shoulder-to-shoulder with the book in between.  The partners have to work out a way to decide who gets to choose the book first and who gets to read first.  Sometimes they choral read together and sometimes they take turns, each reading a page or one child reads an entire book and then the other.  The decision is theirs.  We are so proud of how well our children have learned to read with their partners!

Predictable Charts!

Predictable charts are turned into single sheets
 and put in the independent reading bin so partners
 can read the charts to each other and together

We have been writing predictable charts which include each child's name, a sight word (likes) and a color word.  Today we converted that chart into a page to put in each child's Reading bin.  We practiced reading it with our partners - knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder and text in between.

It wasn't long before one of the partners noticed that "Adam likes blue" was written in red!  Good noticing!  Guess I'll have to give them red pens and let them play teacher and fix the mistake!

First Week of Readers' Workshop

Readers' Workshop has started!  Yes, READERS' Workshop!  While a few of our kindergartners do come into Kindergarten reading, you might wonder what the rest of the children are doing during Readers' Workshop.   Children begin to read by looking at books and pointing to pictures.  They love to look through a stack of books.  They talk about the pictures. 

With familiar stories, children begin to retell the story as they turn the pages.  At first they might just name pictures but as they mature they begin to retell the story the way they have heard it.  You will hear them use the loud, gruff voice of the big Billy Goat Gruff and the sweet soft voice of the wee little Billy Goat.  That is why we read the same stories to children over and over - so that they will remember the story and the language.  Soon they will be saying, "Once upon a time" and "They lived happily ever after."  Before you know it, they will be pointing out letters and words and will tell you that they can't "read" the words.  That's when you know they are ready for conventional reading!

Fifth Grade Tutors

All year we have had fifth graders come in on Friday mornings to read with our children.  I don't know if the fifth graders enjoy it as much as our kids, but our kids "whoop and holler" as the fifth graders walk in.  A few weeks ago we decided to ask the fifth graders to read the comprehension passage with their first grade friends that the first graders have been practicing at home all week before they were tested on the passage.  For a few of the children, it's the only "extra" read they get because their parents don't do it at home, but for ALL of them it's a time when they try very hard because they want to impress their older friend.  Then the fifth graders make up questions they can ask the younger students, testing the younger children's comprehension.

 

As I watching them today, I was impressed with how hard the first graders were working and how hard the fifth graders were trying to think up questions that would be first grade worthy.  Then I started thinking about how many of my first graders had asked for writing conferences this week and how it never seemed like I could catch up.  Then I realized that I was looking at the answer.  The first graders could read their writing each Friday to their older partner!  Not only would it be good practice for the fifth graders to listen and ask the writer questions to help him revise, but it would give the first graders an audience for their work!  Why haven't I ever thought of this before!  Duh!  Can't wait for next week!

 

 

 

 

Compare/contrast

I think one of the most difficult things for a young first grader to do is to compare and contrast when they read - books, characters, themes, whatever.  So to begin teaching that skill, after we have talked deeply about characters, we have our students begin by comparing a character to themselves.  Who do they know better in the world than themselves?!

Although the new Common Core talks about changing directions and having children do less thinking about connections to their own lives and more thinking about the evidence that is actually stated or inferred in the story, very young children still need to think about what they know about stories before they begin and as they read. They do need to access their prior knowledge so that they can take that knowledge and put it with what the text says to form new opinions and interpretations.   They still need to think about times when the same thing happened to them so that they can understand the setting, the problem, the solution - so they can understand why a character does what she does.  That's not to say that our thinking and conversation don't need to be ratcheted up a level and that we then don't need to look for the direct evidence in the book to back up any claims we make.  We can't just talk off the text anymore.  The Common Core demands a much higher and deeper comprehension than we have expected from our youngest readers.

At least this is how my own thinking is going right now... as I grapple with these new expectations.  Below are some of the Venn diagrams that our students did as they were beginning to understand this very complex skill of comparing and contrasting.



Partners

Today we selected  partners.  This is pretty important because partners are long-term partners.  Except for the case of total discontent, these partners will remain the same until the mid-term. 

These partners will work together during  each day's partner reading so we have like partners together.  After the mini-lesson students have 15 minutes of quiet independent reading when students are reading books from their own book buddy.  These books have been carefully selected - mostly books at their independent level to practice, with a couple at their instructional level to challenge.  During that time they are putting sticky notes in their books of places that they want to share with their partners - funny parts, interesting parts, tricky parts...  When the timer goes off, the students know that they have an assigned place at a table or on the floor to meet with their partner.  There they sit side by side -  knee-to-knee and shoulder-to-shoulder and share what they have been reading.  They might also read together.  They have learned how to decide who goes first (rock, paper, scissors is a favorite and so is the mature, "Why don't you go first today?") and how to put the book in between.  It is important that we choose partners that are compatible but also who are close to the same reading level.

These partners are also Math partners - same partners, same place to sit.  This is the person that they will play most of the Math games with, so it is important to make sure we match children, not only who read at a similar level but who also have Math skills at a similar level. No easy task!

This is also the partner that they will sit beside any time we are doing whole group work on the carpet.  The children sit in four rows, crisscross.  When the teacher says, "turn and talk," this is the person that they will face and share with.

Having the same partner for everything cuts down on any confusion and loss of instructional time.  It makes for smooth transitions.

At the mid-term we will interview each student and see how s/he thinks the partnership is working out.  Some students will want a change and some will beg to stay together.  Working with another person and negotiating games and activities is just another life lesson in the daily work of a child.

What's new in Kindergarten?

If you haven't already seen it, you need to check out Lucy Calkins' new curricular units for Readers' and Writer's Workshop which are correlated to the Common Core Standards  (which Kindergarten is suppose to be using this year in our county!)

Did I mention that they are an on-line resource and can be downloaded? For only $10 each? And they are grade specific? Amazing!  You can't see me, but I am dancing with delight!

Not only do the units incorporate all of the teaching that we have gleamed over the years from actually visiting Teachers' College for their Summer Institutes, but it also links together Lucy's Units of Study for Primary Writing, Fountas and Pinnell's Phonics Lessons and Baer's Words Their Way! As I have been reading the monthly units, I realize that at Chets Creek we will have to move into the first grade units before the end of the kindergarten year to account for the fact that Florida has universal Voluntary  Pre-kindergarten.  Our students are coming to us with more experiences so we can breeze through some of the earlier units more quickly, but this will be interesting work for our Reading Council this year.  This will become our Reading and Writing Pacing Guide.  Can't wait to see what each of the grade level Reading Leads think about this new resource.  If you get a chance, let me know what you think about the units.

Readers' Theatre- Choral Style

The children are each practicing an individual part with a Kevin Henkes Readers' Theatre script. At the same time they are practicing a script that they are reading with as a group. Both readings work on fluency - the ability to read like talking with expression. The script with individual parts gives the students a chance to really work on hearing their own voice. The choral reading has more support so that even the weakest reader can use the support of the other readers for words that may be difficult or for reading with expression. Listen as the children begin their choral reading practice.

Transferring

Transferring the skills that we are learning in our Author Study to our general reading is our goal. We want the children to understand that learning about story elements (characters, setting, problem and solution) in our Kevin Henkes books helps us understand any fictional story - that if we understand the structure of a narrative story that it will help us predict what will happen in any fictional story and understand comprehension at a deeper level. So that our children can practice using story elements across their reading, we had them use the same graphic organizer that they used for the Kevin Henkes' stories to organize "just right" stories from their reading bin. The children used their reading response notebooks to record the story elements of one of their own fictional books.On the first page the student drew a triangle and recorded the characters, setting and the problem in the story.On the next page he drew a large rectangle and drew the events. Some students wrote three events and others wrote four or six events, depending on the action in the story. On the last page the child drew a circle and inside that ending shape, wrote the solution to the problem in the story. In this way students are transferring the organization of the retelling of the Kevin Henkes' stories into their own reading lives.

Kevin Henkes Readers' Theatre

For two weeks we are using Readers' Theatre to culminate our Readers' Workshop unit of author and illustrator Kevin Henkes. Readers' Theatre is a lot like reading a play with children assigned specific parts. The difference is that the children are not expected to memorize their lines and they don't walk around on the stage. Instead they stand in a straight row and "read" their lines. The purpose of Readers' Theatre is for students to practice reading like they talk - to help them read with fluency including with expression. The students gather in a circle each day and practice reading their lines in order. They practice being kind to each other and waiting patiently until a child asks for help before giving a word to a child that might be struggling with an unknown word - no small task. The mini-lessons as demonstration and practice or reading with expression. On Friday the children performed their first scripts. On Monday they will get a new script with a new group or actors. They will perform their new script next Friday!

Demo-teaching 2011

One of the best things about Chets Creek is that we do lots of demo-teaching which means doing demonstration lessons for our peers and for visitors. Today I had the pleasure of watching a demonstration lesson by co-teachers Carrie McLeod and Laurie Thompson. Our Standard's Coach Suzanne Shall arranged the lesson for both the Reading Council and primary Science Council which means the teachers watching the lesson were the grade level leads for Reading and Writing at each grade level and the grade level Science leads for the primary school, plus, of course, the Standard's Coach and Principal. No pressure! I am sure Carrie and Laurie had a moment of stressful concern, wondering why they ever agreed to do this, but Chets Creek is a forum where risk-taking is admired and celebrated, and it is a safe environment where peers support and help each other... so they took a deep breath... and it was - on with the show!

The point of this lesson was to show both Reading, Writing and Science teachers what echoes across the day can look like. We know that we get a bigger bang for our buck when we are able to integrate the Science content into our reading and writing lessons and when we are able to practice those reading and writing skills in Science.

Readers' Workshop

Mini-lesson: Today's big topic in reading was Reading Like a Writer. Carrie and Laurie, whose rituals and routines are crisp and clean, began with a mini-lesson connecting today's lesson with the bigger topic. Next for the teach, they showed the students a report written by a 2nd grader (completed in 2nd grade but pulled from a 4th grader's cum writing portfolio!) The teachers identified some of the text features in the report, such as the Table of Contents, words highlighted that were found in the Glossary, headings, captions, etc. - all text features that had been covered in earlier lessons. Then the teachers labeled each noticing with a stickie note. For the active involvement they turned to a new page of the report and had the students "turn and talk" about their noticings so that the students could practice the strategy that had just been demonstrated. The teachers pulled the group back together and had them share out their labeled noticings. The link involved giving each group of two or three students a different 2nd grade report to repeat the same - notice and label text features.

Work Session: As the students divided into small groups (effortlessly!) they each received a 2nd grader's report that had been completed in years past (pulled from cum writing portfolios). Each of the small groups worked independently until they were joined by one of the two teachers to discuss their noticings and labeling. All of the observing teachers were either watching one of the presenting teachers meet with a small group or were soon sitting with a small group themselves helping the children through the task, asking them questions about what they were learning and generally thinking about how they could redesign some of their own work after seeing the lesson. The room was full of artifacts to support the learning that is being integrated. For instance, it is obvious how the day is integrated when you look at the essential questions posted each day. You can see some of the earlier mini-lessons as you read some of the charts that are hanging around the room. As students completed their noticings of the 2nd grade reports, they went to their independent reading, half of the students on the floor reading and half reading in their seats. As the students read quietly Laurie pulled a small group together to reinforce the strategies of text features in a non-fiction leveled book that was on this small group's reading level. At the same time, Carrie, pulled a different small group to go over testing strategies of a state assessment-style non-fiction test. I am assuming this group was pulled together after a task analysis of last week's assessment to work with the students that had specific difficulties with specific types of non-fiction questions. The point is that both of these small groups are off the topic that is echoing across the day!

Closing: The presenting teachers chose two groups as they were circulating to present in the closing. Each group had chosen one example to highlight for the larger group - a text feature that they had noticed and labeled with a stickie note.

Writers' Workshop

We had the good fortune to be able to stay for the Writers' mini-lesson so that we could see how these same lessons were being incorporated into the writing part of the day. The Writers' Workshop also included the 4-part mini-lesson.

Mini-lesson: The teachers began with connecting today's lesson with what the students were doing in reading and what they are doing in Science, which is a habitat and life cycles unit. For the teach the teachers are using butterflies as their example of a topic for writing a report. The students have plenty of background knowledge for this example because they are raising butterflies during Science. The teachers have a seed journal where they have been taking notes about caterpillars and butterflies. As the students begin their writing, they will each choose different animals to write a report on its habitat and life cycle. Some of the previous lessons are obvious, both from charts in the room and the teacher's seed journal example. Today's lesson was on how to organize the notes from the seed journal. The teacher thinks aloud her decision to start with a chapter on "Appearance" and then numbers her notes so that the sequence makes sense. For the active involvement she then turns to a new page in the seed journal where she has taken notes and has the children "turn and talk" about how they would organize this page of information. The link gives the children the facts they need to use the information they have just learned as they go into the work session.

At that point, we had to leave. We had been in the classroom for an hour watching this unforgettable lesson. We will debrief this lesson after school tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if my colleagues took away as much as I did. As for me, there will be things I will tweak and change in my classroom tomorrow because I have had this opportunity today!

Kevin Henkes Attribute Chart

On one of the side walls in our classroom the class has been working on an attribute chart of Kevin Henkes' books. Pictures of the books' covers run across the top of the chart. Down the left side are the headings for a retelling: Characters, Setting, Problem, Events and Solution. Each category represents a mini-lesson on a different day. For instance on one day we talked about Kevin Henkes' characters, the difference between main characters and supporting characters and how characters change during a story. I modeled selecting the main character from one of the books, drawing a picture of the character and writing the name of the character on an index card. Then each student was invited to choose a favorite Kevin Henkes' book, draw a picture of the character and write the name on an index card of his own. Then we chose a card for each of the titles. To show the children how the information in the mini-lesson transfers to a book of their own, each child was invited to identify a main character in a fictional "just right" book in the individual book bin and then to share out their discovery in our closing meeting.

On another day, the children completed cards on settings, problems and solutions. The events took a little more time since the children had to identify the events that show the steps in solving the problem of each story. In this case, I modeled one story and then invited the children to turn and talk to a partner. Together we wrote the events for each story over several days. This attribute chart will be a reference as the children begin writing their retellings.

Learning Story Elements for Retelling

The children spent last week orally retelling Kevin Henkes stories. This week they have been identifying the story parts. They have used a triangle to identify the beginning of a story that includes three parts (one for each point) - the characters, the setting and the problem. The middle of the retelling includes the events of the story and the ending includes the solution - how the problem was solved. To practice identifying the story parts, the students used the shapes as a graphic organizer to identify the parts of Kevin Henkes' stories. Today the children worked in pairs. Each pair selected one of the stories that we have been using and used a large sheet of white construction paper, first drawing a triangle to represent the beginning, a long rectangle to represent the middle and a circle to represent the ending of the story. Next they put sentences or phrases from the story to represent each story element. This will be the outline that they will use to write their written retellings.

Comparing and Contrasting Mem Fox Books

Comparing and contrasting books is a good way for children to begin to understand books across a single author. Today I demonstrated the way that Koala Lou and Possum Magic, both books by Mem Fox, are alike and the ways that they are different by using a Venn diagram. For the active involvement of the mini-lesson the students were divided into partners and allowed to select two other Mem Fox books to compare and contrast using their own Venn diagrams. We helped the partners either chose two of her pattern books or two of her story books so the books would have more in common. As children use the graphic organizer to help them understand the Mem Fox books, it helps them organize their thoughts and begin to talk with a partner - the first steps in accountable talk.