Reading Workshop

Serafini, Frank. (2015). Multimodal Literacy: From Theories to Practices. Language Arts. 92(6), p. 412-423. Using the above mentioned tripartite framework as a lens for investigating the nature of the multimodal ensembles that our students are exposed to in contemporary classrooms, multimodal ensembles are conceptualized as: 1) visual objects, 2) semiotic events, and 3) cultural artifacts (see Figure 1). This reconceptualization of the nature of multimodal texts from three different perspectives provides a foundation for the instructional approaches used to expand students’ interpretive repertoires. It is through these various lenses that we can begin to move beyond the literal or denotative aspects of written text and visual images to consider the semiotic and ideological dimensions of the multimodal ensembles encountered in today’s classrooms. Three Perspectives on Multimodal Ensembles Theoretical Perspective Multimodal Ensembles Instructional Approa...

At the beginning of every school year, I open one or two boxes of books each day during the first few weeks of school. It takes about that long to open all of the boxes of books I now have available. Each day brings a new adventure as we open up a new box to find out what books are inside, what literary treasures await us. This opening of the library boxes is a yearly ritual in my classroom and is designed to help students get a sense of the variety of books that are available. I also do this to help students understand that the books are there for them to read and are not there merely for display purposes. The books in the classroom are there to be looked at, thumbed through and read. Every book is available to everyone.             As we open each new box, the contents are placed on tables around the room to allow students in small groups to spend time investigating each title. We stop periodically to share favorite books we know ...

A Question of Fidelity (originally published in the Arizona Reading Journal) In many elementary classrooms, teachers are being directed to ensure the commercial programs adopted in their districts are being implemented with fidelity . In fact, the word fidelity has become one of the current buzzwords in reading education. Often associated with Response to Intervention models, “Fidelity to the Core Program” is described as a prescribed curriculum that provides teachers with greater certainty about what and how to teach, enforcing strict adherence to the texts, pacing guides and scripts outlined by the authors and publishers of commercial reading programs. To others, it suggests a rigid, subservient adherence to demands of educators far removed from one’s classrooms, and a decrease in one’s professional autonomy. In either case, many reading teachers are mandated to follow adopted core programs, and not to stray from the prescribed tasks associated with each lesson or instructional comp...

My children's book - Looking Closely Through the Forest is now available as an E-Book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/looking-closely-through-forest/id941161388?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Here is an excerpt from a blog I wrote curated by Larry Ferlazzo of Ed Week Available at: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2015/06/response_ways_to_help_students_develop_digital_portfolios.html Print-based student portfolios have been used, misused, discarded, and reintroduced by many schools and districts over the past thirty years. Keeping track of students' work, storing these collections, evaluating them, and using them to drive instruction has had its ups and downs in literacy education. Online and digital portfolios have been used with similar outcomes in elementary, high school, and college settings. The biggest challenge for portfolio advocates is whether to apply normative or criterion-referenced standards for evaluating the contents of students' portfolios by creating rubrics or other grading processes, or allowing individual students to use portfolios to document and demonstrate their learning and development over time. The second app...

Vermont Reads Summer Institute ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… August 3, 4, 5, 2015 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Keynote Address: Reading Workshop 2.0: Supporting Readers in the Digital Age by Frank Serafini This presentation will focus on the changes happening in reading instruction in light of the Digital Revolution. We will look at the features of new texts being used in contemporary classrooms, the lessons necessary for comprehending digital and multimodal texts, and the digital resources available for reading, sharing, discussing and analyzing print-based, digital and multimodal texts. A framework will be shared that demonstrates how the reading workshop structure provides instructional opportunities and reading strategies to help students comprehend and interrogate digital and multimodal texts. Various online resources, and student examples will be shared. Dr. Frank Serafini is an awa...

When asked recently to describe the changes needed to reform literacy education in the elementary classroom I offered the following four areas for consideration: 1. THEORETICAL: shift the focus from teaching to learning - too often we focus on how well our mini-lessons go (if they are in fact "mini") and not whether our students have learned anything from these lessons. Round robin reading instruction and other crappy ideas focus on how we teach, not whether students are getting anything from these experiences. 2. PEDAGOGICAL: You cannot teach children to read and write if they are not engaged in the acts of reading and writing. We need a context to teach into. If students are working on a piece of writing or trying to make sense of a text, we can work with them in that context to do things. 3. ASSESSMENT: We have to try and figure out what children can do, want to do, and are trying to do as readers and writers. In order to do this we have to watch them read, listen to them ...