Chapter+23


 * Chapter 23**

**#1 Lookout spot for THIS text**

//On p. 486, a student came up with the idea of stopping midway through a text calling it a “lookout spot” to linger on the message being communicated so far. Let’s do that for this book (even though we are beyond the halfway point)! Using what we have learned in this chapter about interpreting texts, I invite you to answer one of the questions on p. 478 in response to THIS book so far.//

//This book is my "guide". As I begin my year with the concept of Readers Workshop, I find it is not all about me. It is about creating a community of literate lifelong learners. I have tools that make sense. They will be used to create a pedictable journey. The disconnections need to stop. I so look forward to having a dialogue with my colleagues. We all want to create a community of literate learners but are we willing to walk the walk. Create situations for our children to be better at what they are capable of doing. In clude children in our lessons.//

//Margaret Fox﻿//

This book was written for educators to guide us in teaching ALL students how to read, no matter what their reading ability when they enter our classroom in September. It allows us to teach to ALL students at their level. The author highlights many aspects of the reader’s workshop format including book choice, conferencing, book centers, skills and strategies used by readers, and units of study. All of these ideas, and many others, combine to make teaching reader’s workshop attainable for all teachers at every grade.

Stephanie Cooper Chapter 23 from Bobbi Friend #1 – This book has been very meaningful for me. I am learning so much about how to teach reading and I have gained a great deal of insight about what I have been doing well in addition to what I need to do better. The question I am going to answer is “Why was this book written?” I believe Lucy wrote this book to inspire other teachers of reading to be the best they can be. The book was written as a practical handbook, a guidebook so to speak, to help us teach students to understand what reading is all about and why reading is the most important part in education. Reading is a process, one that continues even into adulthood. Reading is ever changing based on who we are as a lifelong learner and where we are in life’s journey. Lucy gives us ideas, advice, guidelines, and excellent strategies to use in our classrooms that can be applicable to any level reader. We, as reading teachers, need to make the choice to use this book as it is meant to be used. It is not a curriculum. It is not a way to write our lesson plans. It is meant to be our over arching umbrella that all our teaching of reading should fall under.

As Marg said this will be my guide to assist teachers. The content will become more valuable and real when I have a real situation. I will drive into the book with real purpose—this must be back to NF.

I like the idea of the look out point. I just returned from a trip with my sis and mom through Skyline drive—there were many look outs. In the middle to the book is when you are the most in love with it—if you have made it that far. At the ¼ point the book could still lay on the table forever. But at the ½ way point we are committed. The lookout is the place to set your intention for the rest of the book. Then there are the questio ns we can ask: what will it say to you, what will you get out of the book? KDN

For myself I have to say the question, "What is the point of this story for me?" is the question that most spoke to me. The whole undertaking of Reader's Workshop is new for me and I feel that this book along with the others from the book studies will lead my teaching in a new direction this year. I feel that I have learned a lot, set many short and long term goals for myself and have a strong knowledge base to guide my teaching. As KDN stated above, "at the 1/2 point we are committed." That is true, I can't quit a book after investing this much time into it! --Jodee Tuttle

Last year I took the Reading Workshop Seminars and was immersed in the concepts taught in this book. I did that without really reading this book at all. I had the book on a shelf, but when your life is turned upside down in 24 hours...going from a straight second (that I thought I had all planned out and it did NOT include Reading Workshop) to teaching a 2/3 split which DID include Reading Workshop, you just go with it, take from it what you can and keep your head above water...constantly trying to stay ahead of your students (if that's at all possible in this situation). There was no real time to read the book. When the RW class requested I read a section, I either skimmed it when I got to the class...or I skimmed it briefly before the class....but that was my reality. All in all, I think the year went great and with my limited knowledge of it all, I would say my students grew a TON! They LOVED reading!!!! It was a successful year. Now, taking the time over the last couple months to dust the book off, open its creaky spine, and actually read it, I know that there is so much more that my students and I can accomplish with RW. This book will definitely be my guide and a reference tool much more than last year. Now, when things come up I will be able to say to myself, "Self, you read about that in //The Art of Teaching Reading//...go look it up!" When things are fresh and new in your mind, you are better able to access the information you need or know where to look for a refresher. This book has given me a new lease on teaching reading and I'm so excited about it!!! Keri Cooper

The question that stood out to me is "What is the point of this story for me?" I feel that the point of this book is bring to our attention what matters most in our reading instruction. It is going to be a reference for me to draw ideas from to help support my reading curriculum. Getting new and different ideas for book talks, word studies, read alouds and guided reading where very helpful and somewhat overwhelming. I need to get a start and incorporate the suggestions that work for me. Ronda

In today’s world, so many children are being raised by their grandparents or are in foster care. So, this is essentially a story that might help them learn how to cope with their own circumstances. “We can’t choose our parents.” I think this story also tells the world that our children want and deserve to be loved unconditionally.
 * Why was this story written? **

M.J. The question for me was "What is the story, all together, trying to tell me?" This has been a summer long project... reading and digesting it's contents. And the answer for me seems to be that I have got some changes to make in how I am teaching reading. I am excited to get the new school year started so that I can make those changes... mainly by working towards achieving a reading workshop in my classroom. The parts I'm most excited about are the independent reading students will do (and me giving them time to do this!) and conferring with them as they're reading. And the excitement about reading and writing will be contagious! I can't wait! Kari Bonnema

**#2 Old-fashioned longings** //“As a teacher of reading, I long to have some old-fashioned content to deliver in an old-fashioned way to my students. How nice it is to approach my teaching confident that I have the right answer in my pocket.” (477) Ahhh, the honesty of this statement.//

//What do you find when you flip through the archives of your first year or two in the profession? Like Lucy’s, does your “old-fashioned” teaching strategy or content you remember mostly serve your comfort, not the students’ needs? Speak to why your specific memory is appropriately housed on the “retired” shelf and define the teaching practice that has taken its place, if any.//

//I retired my "old-fashioned" ways after my first year of teaching. That was the year that I questioned why was I in this profession. I walked away for a year to reflect. During that year I knew I had something to share. "Where was Readers Workshop? On my own, that was a time that we taught in isolation that I began to research my children. I needed to understand who I was teaching not what I was teaching. I thought I knew it all. Guess what I was still a learning my trade. As I continue on this journey I will strive to give my students all that they will need on their journey. I keep reinventing myself and how I deliver my instruction.//

//Margaret Fox﻿//

My first couple of years of reading instruction are ones which I would rather forget. We worked diligently through the anthologies given to me and completed the accompanying workbook pages. I stressed over accomplishing each concept in the teacher’s manual and students rarely read material for an extended period of time, let alone material at their reading level. I am happy to say that I no longer teach this way. Our workbooks collect dust and our anthologies are used more as shared reading and read alouds. Students spend their reading time actually reading books at their reading level. Skills are still taught, but in short mini-lessons with practice in authentic texts rather than thirty minutes lessons followed by an art project or worksheet that in no way mimics how the skill is used by real readers. Stephanie Cooper

Chapter 23 by Bobbi Friend #2 – My old-fashioned teaching is not that old-fashioned because some of these things I was still using last year. First of all, I have always used literature for my teaching so I thought I was doing a great job teaching reading. I did not have my students pick their books, but I did have them reading real books rather than stories from a basal reader. I would have them read the book on Monday and then answer comprehension questions about the book after they had read it on their own. I thought that I was doing a good job teaching because I was holding my students accountable for comprehending what they were reading because most of them could answer my questions correctly. I would then have them read the same book again on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday where we would focus on other reading skills such as summarizing, sequencing, discovering main idea, vocabulary skills, spelling skills, and other such mundane daily activities. I am realizing more and more that what I was doing was not good teaching even though most of my students could read at grade level. These old-fashioned teaching practices are going to be put on the shelf, because this year I am going to teach reading completely through reader’s workshop.

I never had the luxury of the old fashion ways. My 1st class as I have shared was 4th grade. I had a room of 34 with non readers, one student that could copy anything at anything angle and know who to copy from but also could not read—this made if difficult for me to tell (god bless my mentor and the best resource teacher I have had the pleasure to know) to a couple of girls who could read on the 6th-7th grade levels. My problem was making the old fashion administrators happy with there quiet rooms, rows and everyone on the same page, place and word. KDN

The first year I taught (about 10 years ago) was in a multi-age classroom with talented-and-gifted third through fifth grade students in a private school. I was so overwhelmed! Much of what we did in that school was based on a monthly theme and individualized to students needs in almost all subject areas from math to spelling lists. I was in what I know now to be the beginning of a reading and writing workshop, where students had choice in their work. However, I felt so incompetent when conferring and structuring mini-lessons, not knowing exactly what to address or how. One memory I recall that provided me a sense of comfort was the structured Daily Oral Language (D.O.L.) lesson every morning. I wrote sentences on the board that had mistakes that the students were to identify and correct in their own notebooks. It was one of the only lessons we did every day that had a “right” answer and we all did together. I have since retired that practice, knowing now that children learn those lessons best through their own writing, shared writing, and studying the writing of other authors. Sara Sabourin

My student teaching was completed at Roguewood Elementary School in Rockford. Back then it was an ITI school (Integrated Thematic Instruction). They were on the cutting edge at the time and I had to go through a HUGE interviewing process to even get placed there. Everyone wanted to do their student teaching there. They were putting into practice what were were learning at Grand Valley in all of our classes at the time. There were no textbooks for anything. All the units were created by the teachers. Everything was taught surrounding a topic. If the 3rd graders studied owls and habitats, then their reading, math, science, social studies, etc. all stemmed from that theme. It was an amazing concept and it was fun to plan lessons and units. After that, my first real teaching job was at a Catholic School and we used Literature (trade books) to teach reading. It was more like Reading Workshop...just called something different. It was called Literature Based Reading Instruction. There wasn't a structure built around it, at least not that I knew of. I just knew that we took multiple copies of trade books and used them to teach reading instead of a basal. You see, Reading Workshop isn't really a new concept. It's been around a long time, but it has never been perfected. I believe that parts of it have been changed, added to and tweaked and in the process "Reading Workshop" was formed. For the past ??? years, while teachers (and Lucy) have been working on this project and testing it out and piloting it in schools all over New York, we have been teaching rotely from a basal. We have now come full circle but ended up with a much improved system for teaching reading. It is my opinion that this program is probably the most thorough program that incorporates almost all aspects of reading possible including, word work, individual reading instruction, partner work, small group work, whole group read alouds, and the list could go on. "Freeing" is a word I use to describe how this program makes me feel as a teacher in a classroom. And the fact that Lucy partners this with writing makes the program even more profound. I'm not so sure I really even answered the question in this section or not, but these are my thoughts. Maybe they would have been better shared under the "burning questions and comments" section... Keri Cooper

My "old fashion ways" were in a room where all of the "high" readers came to me for an hour and twenty minutes. They sat in rows one behind the other while we read basals and did our workbook pages religiously. We didn't have time for books talks at all especially when it created noise which with 34 students in one room I was trying hard to avoid. Our writing really didn't extend our reading and I really found it hard to know where my students were at fluency and comprehension wise because I didn't confer with anyone...small group or individually. All I knew that all of the other teachers must know their high readers some how and sent them my way and they could do the work with minimal questions. So life was good. Wow what changes needed to be made. Ronda

As I mentioned earlier in this book study, I was never formally trained to Teach Reading. However, because there were and are so many non-readers in my classroom I feel the need to fill the gaps and help them become more proficient as readers. So, I go back, Way back to my grade school days at a little Catholic school in Montague, MI. We were taught phonics, Read-aloud, chorale reading, and the old SSR Lab. I have used books on tape, premier suite accessibility, computer programs, and online supports like picture and voice supported Starfall.com, News-2-you, and Unique Curriculum. I still believe in good old fashioned phonics for some readers because that is what some individuals really need.

M.J.

My old fashioned ways of teaching reading were more about me, than my students. I used to have all the students listen to me read the story, from the basal reader, on Monday. Then I would teach them the vocabulary words, and we would proceed to work in the workbooks. They all had to sit quietly and listen and then work quietly. It was BORING! I was bored, too! I also would just give writing prompts, when it was time to work on writing. There were few times for "free writing" or writing about their own ideas. Of course, my students all progressed and really grew as readers, but I am saddened to think how much more they could have done and learned. Kari Bonnema

**#3 Opening up and digging in**

//The section that begins on p. 479 describes how we as teachers reduce interpretations of text and how these should only be starting points. What was uncovered for you in this essential section? What do you hope to remember and employ to open up and dig into texts with your readers?//

I admit I’ve been more like the example in the beginning of the chapter in which I’ve tried to “reduce and package the text into a moral” (page 479). I see how using the gradual release of responsibility will help me support readers in eventually answering for themselves, “What’s really going on here?” as they listen to read-alouds and read their own texts (page 481). The sequence of lessons makes sense to me as I think about constructing mini-lessons based on teaching inference to young students. I like how Calkins explained that she stops and models, then marks a point for kids to stop and think, and last has the students decide where they should pause and reflect on the text. Another strategy is to help students think about how the story elements work “contribute to a text’s overall message” (page 479). My plan is to reread Debbie Miller’s book Reading with Meaning for more ideas about teaching comprehension strategies as Calkins reminds us that, “Teaching children to synthesize and to interpret is not about books alone. Taking an overall idea and checking to see if its truth is refracted in each of its parts is an act of mind and an act of life” (page 491). Wow, I love the significance of this quote and the questions in the example after it. I’m excited to plan for helping students think more deeply about texts and ultimately about life! Sara Sabourin


 * //Here is a place to post other ideas and burning questions from chapter twenty three if any. (Remember, a high-quality comment in this bottom section does still count toward your total comments. So anytime the posts for a certain chapter don't speak to you and your thinking, feel free to share your own ideas from the text here...)//**