Reading Workshop

A Reading Workshop 2.0 environment is designed to provide teachers and students with digital and web-based resources and technologies for reading, sharing, discussing, and analyzing children’s literature. These resources provide new avenues for breaking away from traditional ways of responding to one’s reading and new tools for accessing, sharing, analyzing and discussing what is being read. As readers encounter children’s literature in new formats and platforms, the basic processes of reading, sharing, discussing and analyzing texts will change in some ways and remain the same in others. Because of these changes, new instructional approaches and resources will be required to support the development of young readers in a Reading Workshop 2.0 environment. In the second half of this book I will share specific instructional approaches and lesson ideas that take into account how digital and web-based resources impact reading, sharing, discussing and analyzing children’s literature. Altho...

Readers learn to read by reading. In some ways, it’s just that simple. No one can read a book for you. Yes, they can read a book to you, but that is different. If children don’t see themselves as readers, and don’t see the purposes for reading, why would they ever want to become readers? We have to establish routines and procedures in the reading workshop that provide access to interesting texts, time to read, and opportunities to share what has been read. In addition, we have to stop asking readers to do things in the name of becoming a life-long reader that life-long readers would never tolerate. Asking readers to build dioramas, write book reports, fill in worksheets, or participate in round-robin reading simply needs to come to an end. We just need to finally say, ‘No.” In place of these worthless activities and outdated instructional approaches, we need to provide readers with demonstrations of the kinds of literate practices that life-long readers engage in, and provide instruct...

Here is a link to the Top Ten list I did for the Nerdy Book Club: http://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/top-ten-list-favorite-postmodern-picture-books-by-frank-serafini/