Readers Workshop

For our reading time, we have a whole group comprehension lesson that teaches the students a skill that they can use when they're trying to understand a text. When I am meeting with small groups of students to work on decoding strategies and comprehension, the other students are responsible for doing Read to Self or Read to Someone. The books the students use for those independent reading times are chosen by them. They need to get two books from a leveled book tub on their reading level, and then they get to choose three books that interest them. These types of books might be ones that do not have a certain reading level, but they engage the students' attention and, therefore encourage them to develop a love for reading  by choosing topics they want to learn or read about.

During those independent reading times, students are responsible for reading the whole time, getting started right away, and focusing only on reading, not talking to others. If they choose to Read to Someone, they are held accountable for the same actions listed above. They can choose to do two options of reading to another person. One option is "I Read, You Read." In this type of reading, one student reads a page, and the other student repeats what he or she just read. This helps the students build fluency, and they can learn decoding strategies from one another. The other option for reading to another person is called "Read 2 different books." In this option, both students get to choose a book from their book box, and they take turns reading parts of their books to each other. This also helps students learn decoding strategies from one another, in addition to exposing them to different genres and levels of text.