BlogsAcademicsLibrary ServicesEnglishPre-K to 8
Reading Workshop: Reading to Find Meaning
Sep 1, 2011 10:06 AM
By David Powell - FF/S
For the past several months the Lower School teachers have been training to lead Reading Workshop--an exciting and innovative new way to create curious, avid, self-motivated readers. I have spoken with several parents who are interested in the new program, and lots of questions remain. Why do we need a new way to teach reading? Isn't it all the same procedure, basically? Wasn't the Accelerated Reader system good enough?
The short answer to both questions is--no. Not all systems are the same, and AR, for all its merits, left some major elements of an active reading life unaddressed. But rather than launching into a dense explanation of Reading Workshop, I encourage you to click here to watch a video that will show you the system in action in a kindergarten class. It's about nine minutes long; please watch it before continuing to read.
Briefly put, the Reading Workshop model replaces mandatory quizzes about facts with a collaborative engagement between teachers, students, and texts to find meaning. Sometimes as adults we read just for facts; we want to know what happened when the hurricane hit, or how our stock portfolios have changed. But even in those examples we want more than simple facts--we want to know what the facts mean. Can my relatives in Vermont drive to the hospital? Will I be able to retire in a few years, or ever? I have friends who proudly tell me that they never read fiction. They want to engage with the real world; they want information. But it only takes a few questions to get them to admit that they want the information so that they can understand their world better.
Kids are no different. Sometimes they want just to be amused, and sometimes they want to understand the world better. Reading Workshop develops our attitude towards reading so that we learn to enjoy it. We replace an arbitrary quiz (about facts I may or may not have considered important) with an interesting conversation about what I've read so that I learn to speak and write more expressively and exactly. This was fun to read, or this taught me something interesting I didn't know, or this made me feel happy or sad. And in the process I have strengthened my relationship with my teacher, who shared her insights, and with my friends, who share theirs. I learn that my feelings and thoughts about what I read matter.
Visit a classroom at the Lower School during a reading exercise. You may find yourself wanting to jump into the conversation yourself.
The short answer to both questions is--no. Not all systems are the same, and AR, for all its merits, left some major elements of an active reading life unaddressed. But rather than launching into a dense explanation of Reading Workshop, I encourage you to click here to watch a video that will show you the system in action in a kindergarten class. It's about nine minutes long; please watch it before continuing to read.
Briefly put, the Reading Workshop model replaces mandatory quizzes about facts with a collaborative engagement between teachers, students, and texts to find meaning. Sometimes as adults we read just for facts; we want to know what happened when the hurricane hit, or how our stock portfolios have changed. But even in those examples we want more than simple facts--we want to know what the facts mean. Can my relatives in Vermont drive to the hospital? Will I be able to retire in a few years, or ever? I have friends who proudly tell me that they never read fiction. They want to engage with the real world; they want information. But it only takes a few questions to get them to admit that they want the information so that they can understand their world better.
Kids are no different. Sometimes they want just to be amused, and sometimes they want to understand the world better. Reading Workshop develops our attitude towards reading so that we learn to enjoy it. We replace an arbitrary quiz (about facts I may or may not have considered important) with an interesting conversation about what I've read so that I learn to speak and write more expressively and exactly. This was fun to read, or this taught me something interesting I didn't know, or this made me feel happy or sad. And in the process I have strengthened my relationship with my teacher, who shared her insights, and with my friends, who share theirs. I learn that my feelings and thoughts about what I read matter.
Visit a classroom at the Lower School during a reading exercise. You may find yourself wanting to jump into the conversation yourself.
