Best Practices: Reading workshop at VCES

Reading and writing workshop was developed at Columbia University Teachers College. Many VCES teachers have spent time at Columbia Teachers College training in reading and writing workshop.  Reading and writing workshop is a workshop-based model of moving students through reading and writing skills. 

 

 

Readers workshop emphasizes student time on text. Research shows a strong correlation between time on text, higher order thinking and overall reading achievement. Readers workshop is designed to minimize teacher talk and maximize students’ time on text, with fifth graders reading for nearly sixty minutes in class each day.

 

 

 

The teacher teaches a 10-15 minute mini-lesson on a specific concept or skill, then students spend the majority of their time engaged in authentic experiences with reading and writing. The lessons they learn are designed to be transferable from book to book and writing experience to writing experience, thus impressing upon them that they are life long readers and authors. 

 

 

 

Word work, read alouds, and shared reading are used on a daily basis to support reading and writing workshops. 

Third grade read aloud wall:	Second grade read aloud wall and writing samples:

There are no textbooks in reading workshop, and students select books that interest them.