The beginning of the year is one of my favorite times of the school year. It’s hectic, and overwhelming, but it’s also filled with hope and excitement! Along with that hope and excitement is launching reading workshop.
It’s the time when my students really become readers, and realize that often, the reason someone doesn’t like reading is because they haven’t found the right book yet.
Throughout this post, you’ll find Amazon Affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission if you purchase something through that link, at no extra cost to you, that helps keep my blog running and helps fund giveaways!
What’s the purpose of launching the reading workshop?
- Create community
- Establish routines, procedures, and expectations
- Model procedures, behaviors, and expectations
- Explore a variety of books for enjoyment to get students excited about reading
It’s important to know that launching reading workshop takes time. It’s not fast, and it can often feel like I’m already behind in what I should be teaching.
But, establishing routines, procedures, and expectations now, will pay dividends later on when my classroom practically runs on its own like a well-oiled machine.
What lessons support launching the reading workshop?
There are two types of lessons that support launching reading workshop: reading behavior (sometimes called routine or procedural) lessons and reading comprehension lessons.
Reading behavior lessons are those that teach students how to be successful independent readers. Perhaps, most important, students must be successful independent readers to ensure that guided reading groups run effectively.
Reading Behavior/Routine/Procedure Lessons Include:
- What readers do
- Why readers read
- Ways to Read a Book
- Building Our Independent Reading Stamina
- Independent Reading Expectations
- Choosing a Just-Right Book
- Finding a Reading Partner
- What do good reading partners do?
- How to partner read?
- I Read, You Read
- Choral Reading
- Deciding who goes first
- How to help when your partner gets stuck on a word
- Solving Tricky Words
- Good Readers Ask
Mentor Text Suggestions
The lessons you decide to teach in your classroom depend on your students. However, I think it’s important to not assume that because students are a certain age/grade that they should already know how to do something.
What lesson you choose to teach first is up to you, but I’ve listed the lessons in the order that makes the most sense in my classroom. This is also the order in which I’ve taught the lessons with 1st, 2nd, and 4th grade students.
Yes, I really did teach these lessons with 4th graders.
Reading comprehension lessons are those that teach students how to understand what they’re reading.
Reading Comprehension Lessons Include:
- Fiction Check for Understanding
- Story Elements/How to Retell a Story
- Story Elements/Retelling Bookmark
- 5-Figer Retell
- Fluent Readers
- Readers Think While Reading
- Readers Make Connections
- Text-to-Self Connections
- Text-to-Text Connections
- Text-to-World Connections
- Nonfiction Check for Understanding
- Nonfiction Text Elements
- Nonfiction Retelling Bookmark
Mentor Text Suggestions
- The Red Book (wordless picture book)
- The Lion & the Mouse (wordless picture book)
- Poppleton
- The Best Seat in Second Grade
- Henry and Mudge
- Cork and Fuzz Best Friends
For each of these lessons, I give my students a printable anchor chart to put in their reading notebooks to keep as reminders while they’re practicing.
I definitely don’t just pass all of these out at once, though. Students only get these after we’ve completed the mini-less, and modeled as a whole class.
The following printables are all available here.
You Might Also Like:
- How to Teach Students to Build Reading Stamina
- Organizing a Classroom Library
- Books to Build a Community of Learners
- Positive Classroom Management
Let’s connect!
Instagram // Pinterest // Facebook // Teachers Pay Teachers
