Building Community Knowledge about Reader's Workshop - Video Inquiry

(These are engagement notes and video that I will be using with teachers in an initial inquiry into reader's workshop).

2 first graders creating. (Newark, NJ)

Engagement #1

Our initial goal is to gather some tentative impressions about the instructional practice, Reading Workshop. We'll begin this process by:

1. Viewing video clips that depict some aspect of reading workshop 
2. Responding to a set of questions at each station
3. Responding to what our peers have written.

Task 1

1. Visit two stations (your choice). 
2. At each of these station view the video that is cued with your group. 
3. Respond on the large sheet of paper that covers the table to these 3 questions:

• As you view the video, what role or roles does the teacher adopt?
• What are the task(s) students are doing? Are these tasks ones that the students can manage well?
• How does the video confirm or challenge your understanding of what constitutes effective reading instruction?

      4. Take a few minutes to reread what your peers have written on the large sheet of paper. Take a moment to respond to one or more comments that interest you.




Videos


Station 1. Grade 1: Reader's Workshop, Rena Norwood Students contemplate why they reread a text.




Station 2: Grade 2: The teacher models asking, 'What do I already know?' as a strategy to use while reading nonfiction.

Station 3: Grade 5: Fifth grade teacher's (Rick) reading workshop with a focus on the mini-lesson.

  

Debrief: Take a few minutes to record in your notebook what you most want to remember about teaching reading and reading workshop based on your interactions with the videos and your peers.
Record on the group sheet any questions you want to pose for us to consider and think about.

Engagement 2: 

Task 1:

1. Study the reading data I have displayed. This data is taken from the class of children we will be seeing in the next video.  
2. Turn and talk with a partner about what you notice and what you are wondering with regard to this data. 
3. Look at the data a year later. What do you notice now? 

1. 1st part of video (Teacher model) 
Please notice the language the teacher uses to model how to infer unknown words.

2.  2nd part of video (Students try the strategies)
Please notice how the students problem solve and how the teacher scaffolds their understanding. If you were a student in this classroom and you did everything you were expected to do, what would you know and be able to do?

3. Discuss the similarities and differences you note among the videos you have watched and discussed. What seems important to you?

Misc.

Building a Reading History

Electronic Resources