Reading Workshop

At Hannah Beardsley, my teammate, students, and I collaborated to create our own independent reading program called “LitFit: Readers Raising the Bar." This program helps students learn how to self-select personally and developmentally appropriate books, set goals, track progress, provide accountability through teams, and analyze reading behaviors and habits.

The foundation of the program is practicing to develop stronger literacy skills and a love of reading.

We use the visual of a huge pegboard in our classroom where we hang pictures of every book we read, and we use it to sort books. Our sorts analyze our reading habits and behaviors, and they help us set goals.

Each LitFit team has a section of the board, and the visual representation of our reading, helps us celebrate our progress while also reminding us of our goals. Each trimester, we used the board to track progress towards new, more challenging goals.

During some school years, students work in teams to meet self-selected reading criteria and earn LitFit badges. Students make these badges together and then work to earn them and hang on their section of the board.

LitFit is something that I have continued in each of my classrooms across District 47 and District 27. I believe in making our priorities visible and in celebrating literacy, and that's why LitFit is so important. Students traditionally look forward to book tag day, and that motivation helps develop natural motivation for independent reading.

An important component in a reading and writing workshop is the modeling of skills and strategies using rich literature. During shared reading, I use instructional-leveled text to model standards-based comprehension skills, self-monitoring strategies, and critical analysis skills to provide a model of the thinking and responding attached to effective reading and writing.

Students share in this process, and it serves as a bridge to more self-guided, independent work with a wide variety of texts. Students learn how to:

• Summerize using central ideas and details

• Use text features to support comprehension

• Establish and support a claim

• Analyze story structure

• Notice direct and indirect characterization as well as internal and external conflicts

• Identify symbolism and themes in literature

• Respond to text in writing

• Identify descriptive writing techniques

• Organize facts through effective research

• Make connections

• Synthesize new ideas

• Compare and contrast texts

When I taught fourth grade, I used literacy workstations as a major component of my reading workshop. Now that I teach middle school, I don't use them with as much regularity; however, they still have a place in our classroom. Now I use laminated "write and wipe" posters, sorts, photo writing prompts, and language challenges as short independent activities while I am conducting guided reading lessons or individual reading/writing conferences. These workstation activities most often serve as a review or extension of concepts.

If I notice students needing additional support to independently employ comprehension strategies, I pull small groups. Students in these guided reading groups participate in a series of short lessons that include a text at their instructional reading level and guided practice using the skill or strategy that they need to strengthen. I often use guided reading as a re-teaching strategy.

I also use guided reading in an extension format. By pulling students who are ready to practice a comprehension skill or strategy at a higher text level, I am able to differentiate for students who need a challenge. This often includes using less- traditional text structures like screen plays, poetry, or digital non-fiction, and is based on a standard-progressions and student interest.

Independent reading and writing is a must in my classroom. I always want to know what my students are reading and writing, and what they think about their progress.

Each week I meet with approximately 10 students in individual conferences. We have a discussion about their novel that requires them to demonstrate not only self-monitoring strategies but also comprehension strategies and analysis skills. We share book recommendations and make comparisons and enjoy reading!

We also conference about independent writing projects and make the connection between the skills we are learning in class as they apply to those projects.