I have been emailing back and forth with a lovely teacher who is using my Second Grade Reading Workshop and Shared Reading Bundle.
In answering some questions for her, I realized that some of the information I was giving her might be helpful for anyone using the bundle. So here are some quick tips to help you plan to use both my reading workshop units and my shared reading guide together.
– You will need to set aside time in your schedule for a shared reading lesson (20-25 mins + time for your students to respond to the text in writing, if you like), a reading workshop minilesson (10-15 minutes) followed by independent reading time, and a readaloud time (10-15 minutes).
– The shared reading lessons are when you spend time reading entire texts and discussing them as a class. These are provided in my shared reading curriculum. I also provide prompts for students to respond to those same texts in writing.
– The reading workshop minilesson is when you teach a skill or strategy that you want students using as they read on their own. This comes right before their independent reading. You don’t read an entire text during the minilesson because you want the focus to be on the strategy, not the content of the text. Instead, you use brief excerpts from texts you’ve already read to students during a shared reading lesson, or during your…
– Readaloud time. This is when you read aloud a chapter book or other book to students just for enjoyment and a quick discussion. When you’re working on my reading workshop units that focus on fiction, this readaloud time will be especially important because you will frequently reference your readaloud chapter books during the workshop minilessons. (When you’re working on my reading workshop units for nonfiction, you can usually just use a nonfiction book from shared reading.)
– Here’s a sample (made-up) schedule. Your schedule doesn’t have to follow this order at all; I just want to provide an example of how you might incorporate these three elements into your literacy block.
9:00-9:25: Shared reading lesson
9:25-9:45: Word work
9:45-10:00: Readaloud and snack
10:00-10:15: Reading workshop minilesson
10:15-10:50: Independent reading time
10:50-11:45: Writing workshop
As always, email me if you have any questions. Happy teaching!
Hi Ms. Lilypad! I had messaged you on TPT about how you use your workshop bundle. I have read this and I was still wondering where do you do your guided reading and centers/stations? These are county expectations where I teach and I only have 90 minutes for ELA and then 45 minute block for Writing. I’m just wondering how I would use all your materials with my time constraints?
Thanks for your advice! I know you’re super busy too! 🙂
Amanda
Hi Amanda! You can pull guided reading groups during independent reading time (I did a mix of independent reading conferences and guided reading groups). I can’t remember if you’re using my writing curriculum or not, but that would definitely fit in the 45 minutes. You could also incorporate grammar/language arts into your writing time, depending upon what you have to do for those lessons. I’m not sure what all you have to fit in your ELA block, but maybe something like this would work: Shared reading lesson – 20 minutes (if you need to shorten one of my shared reading… Read more »