Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are
joining together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas
about supporting young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading
teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the
discussion. Juli is also keeping a weekly journal of her own Reading
Workshop initiative. Find out more about our project at our Reading Workshop homepage. You'll find
Juli's background article here. Links
to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file
will begin to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
Independent Reading is alive and well in our Reading Workshop.
Since I only work with at-risk readers, I always wonder what will
happen the first time we all read independently. We laid the groundwork
with a mini-lesson on the Independent
Reading Rubric.
As I explained what the "pretend" game was, students
were able to tell me at least 10 different ways they know to play
"the game." This discussion reminded me of Chris Tovani's
book, I Read It But I Don't
Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers. In
it she tells how she began to fake read. "I started to 'fake-read'
in sixth grade and continued to do so for the next twenty years....
I read aloud beautifully and could decode even the most difficult
words. The problem surfaced when I had to use, remember, or retell
what I had read. I couldn't do it."
We began Reading Conferences after several days of observing readers
during Independent Reading. I took cryptic notes on the open-ended
Reading Conference form teachers at Whittier developed (download
a filled-out and/or blank form here.) Since the focus of our
conferences is constantly changing based on our assessments of
students, we like this form because it is so flexible. At the
brief, individual conferences, I gave feedback on how they had
"read" during Independent Reading. One student had stared
at a blank computer screen, scratched and done very little reading
until we conferenced. During our discussion, he looked honestly
embarrassed at what he had not done. He returned to his place,
put his head into his book and read.
During Independent Reading we also began on-going assessment of
our students. We want to start assessments so we can move ahead,
providing a strong instructional program for students based on
their "work" in reading. While students read to us individually,
we recorded the accuracy of their reading (running records), the
strategies they used to problem solve and how fluently they read.
We analyze the important information we get from running records
to determine minilessons, reading strategy lessons, guided reading
groups, and leveled books for students' book bags.
Large plastic bags filled with leveled books are handed out during
our first individual Reading Conferences after the running records
are completed. In her book, The
Heart of the Matter: Using Standards and Assessments to Learn,
Beverly Falk explains why we concern ourselves with this type
of assessment.
"In contrast to the way that standardized, norm-referenced, multiple-choice tests influence teaching to emphasize content coverage, fact recall, and rote performance of skills, there is another way to think about curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This way views the goals and purposes of learning as developing abilities to use critical skills and information in order to 'have wonderful ideas.'
..."A critical part of this approach to teaching and learning is ongoing assessment by the teacher. It provides important information about what each learner does and how he does it so that the teacher can know what strategies and approaches to use to be effective. It offers insights to the learner's way of thinking, why he makes mistakes that he does, what strengths the learner relies on in order to succeed, and what areas need strengthening in order to improve."
Read Juli's next journal entry
Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her
work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page