I recently shared these questions to ponder with teachers at my school after my principal asked for noticings about conferring during Readers Workshop. As a reading teacher in my building I am lucky enough to get to go into classrooms and confer with students during their Readers Workshop time while also being able to pull them during Guided Reading time for a guided reading group. I get to see what is going on in classrooms and make sure students are transferring skills taught in guided reading with me ,to the classroom and vice versa. I really like being able to do that!
Anyway these are some questions I asked myself and want everyone to ask themselves who confer with students.
- Consider how much time your students are getting to read independently in books of their own choosing.
- Consider what would be more beneficial, completing a reading task or reading.
- Are some tasks better to use within a Guided Reading group where I am there to give more support?
- When my students are completing reading tasks are they connecting the tasks and skills used to read for meaning and transfer the skills?
- Are my students getting time to approximate the research and teaching I am doing with mentor texts in their own texts?
- Am I teaching reading skills in isolation?
- Am I teaching each reader or putting to much focus on teaching a book or skill?
- Am I spending more time researching/assessing than noticing and naming and teaching the reader when conferring?
- Am I looking for skills I have previously taught in student books to reinforce?
- Am I researching with students in their own books to teach for transfer of skills and noticing and naming skills when I see students use them or teach a skill when it arises authentically in the student’s book, where they have to do the thinking with you there to support them?
- When introducing a skill, do I try to keep the focus on reading for meaning and introduce the skill as a tool to help the reader understand the text deeper?
I am really starting to think about reading tasks vs reading and what is more beneficial. I know there is research out there discussing this. I think no matter how well you model thinking readers do, by thinking aloud for students, they will not completely get it until they are doing the thinking while reading books of their choice and have an “Ah Ha” moment where transfer takes place. I am wondering if students are being asked to practice reading strategies as reading tasks that can become a separate activity altogether in the students eyes, when that is clearly not the teachers intention. They are focused on completing the task, but forgetting to think about meaning. Maybe students do not have a good grasp of these strategies before they are being asked to independently practice. These are questions we have to ask ourselves.
I feel reading skills and strategies are tools we use to help us read for meaning. The independent reading time within Readers Workshop should be used for independent reading. Not for completing a task for skill practice associated with a strategy causing authentic reading taking a backseat or not happen at all for some students.
This is a deep topic and I have barely scratched the surface asking some questions. I have intentionally not included any research with this post. I am just wanting to get a conversation started for myself and others!
Let me know your thoughts!
Reflect 