the PaperWings

After 3 years of teaching reading and writing workshop in my classroom and after finally starting to get a handle on what I was doing, I started to feel a pull between reading and writing. I didn't like that even though there were so many similarities and so many connections to be made, the units were sometimes so far apart that those connections were not immediately visible to the students. So, on my fourth year, I drafted my own units of study by teaching all the same skills as before but reordering them a bit (and sometimes just rephrasing them) so that reading and writing could be one. In this way, I was able to make the innate connections between reading and writing immediately visible to my students and I believe they flourished. Mainly, they gained a strong sense of genre and purpose. They could think much more flexibly about reading from the point of view of the writer and writing from the point of view of the reader. Because the connections between reading and writing wer...

Teachers who are new to workshop often finding themselves teaching a minilesson and then floating around the room re-teaching that same teaching point during conferences. Don't fall into that trap! Minilessons are for teaching one skill that almost everyone needs; conferences are for teaching individuals new skills that they need to become more proficient. This is like a teacher's Prime Time. So keep 'em short (about 4 minutes per conference if you can), take notes (more on that later), and present new skills as clearly as you can.   There are three basic types of conferences: Research-decide-teach: An RDT conference is probably comprises most of our conferences (and is most difficult, in my opinion.) We research the child either from afar or by listening in as they read or talk, and we sift through all the possible teaching points. And then we do the hardest thing of all: We decide which teaching point will have the biggest impact with this child, at this tim...

What do we mean by Balanced Literacy? Before you declare that you teach in this way, check out the Lucy Calkin's Teacher College version of BL. As with any educational buzz words, not everyone is in total agreement on the components of Balanced Literacy, but everyone seems to agree on the below three balancing acts: 1. Balance between part and whole (The part is the code of reading, comprehension, & fluency, and the whole is the whole text and integrating the parts.) 2. Balance between reading to, with, and by students 3. Balance in group size (There is a bit of whole group, but most of a Balanced Literacy's teacher instruction takes place in small group or one-on-one/one-on-two.) Whole;  reading by;  one-on-one  (when he gets his turn conferring with teacher) The name of the game is to keep those balancing acts in check. Guard against too much whole group, too much focus on the mechanical part of reading (or not enough), a lack of indepen...

Chances are you've heard both terms. You may be tempted to toss guided reading and embrace the newest "most hip" reading group on the block. But hold your horses- there's room for both in a balanced literacy classroom. Here's some of the main differences: Guided Reading Group Strategy Group Teacher acts like a coach on game day, first setting the group up for the game to come, and then offering words of advice from the sidelines as the players tackle the job of reading the text beginning to end. Teacher acts like a coach during a practice, stating a discreet skill she notices the group needs to work on, teaching it, modeling it, then allowing time for practice of that skill. Teacher is like a safety net under a tightrope walker. She stays with student from the beginning to the end of the experience and coaches the whole time. Teacher teaches just one skill in isolation to tightrope walker and stud...

What is the single most FUN, action-packed part of your teaching day? That's what I thought! The strategy group. Think of a strategy group as one big P A R T Y ! The Invitation (or, Who Gets to Come) : To attend a strategy group, you need your very own special invitation.  Who's invited? Any child who is in need of a certain skill, as judged by you during your one-on-one conferences. While guided reading groups include children who read on the same reading level, strategy groups can have children from levels all over the map. A group on making mental images might include a child reading Biscuit books and a child reading A to Z Mysteries. Bringing Gifts (or, What to Bring to a Group Meeting) : When students attend a strategy group, everybody brings a different "gift" to the party. That is- since everyone is on a different level, it's BYOB. Bring Your Own Book. A typical strategy group routine is that when a student is invited, she brings her entire book box w...

Ever finish teaching a small reading group and wonder, "what did I actually teach just now"? You are right to reflect on that question (often!) since teachers get such a limited time with students working in small, focused groups each day. If you believe, as I do, that teaching in small groups and one-on-one is the most effective part of your teaching day, then you'll want to get the absolute biggest bang for your buck possible. By focusing on one strategy during a small group lesson (I mean it! Just ONE strategy at a time- no cheating!), you can maximize student understanding and the probability that they will remember and use what you've taught them. This is the whole idea of the strategy group. Instead of supporting a group of like-leveled readers as they read an entire on-level book, strategy groups pull together a group of heterogeneous students in order to explicitly teach one strategy that they all need. When a child leaves your group, you and each child n...