1. The Launch: The First 20 Days
South Plainfield School District
July 25, 2013

2. Establishing a Routine
This procedure takes about a month to get going, but once implemented it works very well.
Two important goals to independent reading/writing:
help your students think of themselves
as readers/writers
establish a routine for independent
reading/writing
One of the most important procedures for managing independent reading is to establish a routine. We have adapted a routine from The book Guiding Readers and Writers grades 3-6 by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell.

3. Essentials of Reading & Writing Workshop
Reading Workshop
Teacher Model
Shared Reading
Minilessons (researched based reading strategies)
Guided Reading and Literature Circles
Time to read independently and time to share
Choice
Reflection and Evaluation
Environment and materials
Writing Workshop
Teacher Model
Shared Writing
Minilessons
Teacher and peer conferences
Time to write independently and share
Literature based
Choice
Records and self assessment
Environment and materials
Modeling is key to instruction
We model our thinking, writing, and processes for children as mature readers and writers
Writing to and reading to students is the instructional approach with the most teacher support- students listen in, while teacher models

4. Day 1 – Selecting Books
Share with your class how your classroom library is organized.
Show students how to check out books.
Discuss reasons to choose books. Make an anchor chart to hang up on the wall of different reasons we choose books such as:
we like the author, the cover, read the back, read other books in the series, like the genre, it’s a new book, heard about it, need to read it for school work.
You might want to create browsing boxes that you want students to choose particularly to what content area, genre, or skills you are working on.
Where do you keep the browsing boxes?
In clusters of 4-5 around the room by desks or bookshelves
students keep their browsing boxes in the same location You decide; the most important thing to remember is to have all year
What do you put in the browsing boxes?
“Good Fit Books” are books at a child’s independent reading level.
REMIND THAT OUR WEBSTIE HAS DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO SET UP YOUR LIBRARY
Don’t forget to consider a child’s interests
Where do you get materials for browsing boxes?
classroom library/old Weekly Readers/Scholastic News/Reading A-Z
leveled Guided Reading books
When and how do you change the books in the browsing boxes?
Depends on the genre you are studying, student interests, or topics in other subjects

5. Day 2 -3: Choosing Books
Getting your students to pick the right books is very important, students should read “just right” books, while sometimes easy and challenging books are ok to read also.
Make a chart with 3 columns labeled easy, just right, and challenging fill in with characteristics about those types of books. For example: font sizes of each, pictures, difficult words, and confusing, are some things my students bring up.
Independent book bags/boxes: discuss that every student needs to have; here are some suggestions…

6. Day 4 -“Reading is Thinking”
Make a poster that says “Reading is Thinking”
Explain to the class that today we will have quite a bit of time for reading and that reading is thinking and you can do your best thinking when it is quiet.
After the students have silently read, finish the poster by adding what the students were thinking about while they were reading- I wonder what will happen next, this reminds me of, I was scared, happy, sad, surprised when…

7. Anchor Charts
Table talk discussion: How do anchor charts support and scaffold students in learning?
Anchor charts are a critical piece of an literacy active/rich classroom.
The teachers used chart paper to model writing, keep a running list (ex. of what good readers do) for students to remember points from a lesson, record what readers/writers do as they think
The key is that students have a visual that reminds them of the content from the lesson where information was recorded on the chart. It also scaffolds information. Anchor charts are live and not reused from year to year.

8. Day 4: Thinking and Talking about your reading
Share with your class things that you are thinking about while you are reading. Use a specific example of a book and what you thought about while reading that book.
Tell the class how they will be thinking as they are reading and different things they might be thinking about, write these on the “Reading is Thinking” poster.
Have the students mark two places with sticky notes that made them think about something while reading.

9. Day 5: Group Discussions “How to Buzz with each other”
Discuss with your class how they can talk with each other cooperatively.
Make a poster (with your guidance) of some simple guidelines about sharing with others.
After a group discussion about how well the group shares went and things they can work on.
The is applicable to all grade levels: Kindergarten and 1st grade can use symbols.

10. Day 6: Abandoning Books
Once in a while student abandon books and this is ok.
Hold a group discussion about why readers abandon books and when it is ok to abandon books.
Establish guidelines as to how long do you give a book a chance (create an anchor chart with the students).

11. Day 7-8: Genres of Books Distinguish between fiction and non fiction.
Discuss different kinds of fiction.
Discuss different kinds of non fiction.
Show examples of the different kinds of each.
Anchor chart

12. Day 9: Keeping a Record of your Reading
Provide your students with a reading journal (notebook).
Divide the journal into three sections:
Reading Log – readers keep a list of books they’ve read
Title/author/genre,
Date of completion
Easy, just right, challenging
Response to their reading – readers can share their thinking about reading by writing (Day14), create a list of reading interests (Day 16)
Reading interest or book recommendations (Day 17)
Check for understanding as you read: what was the author’s message (Day 18)
Use whatever works for you: spiral notebook, marble composition book, binder, or create your own.
What is most comfortable to you and students. MAKE AND TAKE – “HOT SPOT”

13. Day 10: Guidelines for Readers Workshop
Each day for a set amount of time will be readers workshop.
Discuss and make a poster of guidelines for the class for expectations during this time. Let the students have input on this.
Guidelines can include:
You must always be reading or writing in your reading journal
You need to work silently
Use a soft voice when talking with the teacher
Select books that you will enjoy and don’t abandon them until you have given them a chance
List your book information in your journal
Always do your best work
This is for readers and writers workshop; REMIND THEM THAT WE ARE NOW AT A 90 MINUTE BLOCK!

14. Day 11-12: Written Responses to Reading
Share with the class that not only will they share their thinking orally in groups or as a class but that they will also be writing about their thinking.
Share an example friendly letter or journal entry where you share what you might be thinking about while reading.
The journal response or weekly letter must include the title and author of the book they are reading. If writing a letter, proper friendly letter format must be followed.
Hang a poster up which has students assigned to what specific day of the week their journal is due, and also that they can’t just write one or two sentences that does not give enough information about them as a reader.
Be sure to write back each week to the letters or respond to their entries, and share your thoughts on their reading. Also share what you are reading and what you are thinking about your reading.
Try to schedule each group on a daily basis to make it a point to assess each student per week.

15. Day 13: Editing your Journal Response Proofreading and Using punctuation
After the first week or so of journal writing, conduct lessons on
proofreading, using the correct punctuation, and solving unknown words (Day ). Show letters written without punctuation and that are not proofread and allow the students to correct these letters.
Establish and explain your grading system for letters:
1 point for having all the required parts of a friendly letter
1 point for the author
1 point for the title of the book and underlining it
5 points for content
5 points for punctuation and proofreading.
Remind the students of these requirements and post a rubric in the room as a reminder. Suggested read-alouds: Puncuation Takes a Vacation, or Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
Refer to handout for additional rubrics for journal responses.
Again, depending on your grade level, use what best for you.
We want to hold the students accountable for their work.

16. Day 15:Using Sticky Notes
Have the students use sticky notes to mark places they were thinking while reading.
Provide each student with two sticky notes (1x1 works best).
Discuss with the class coding you could use to mark on their sticky notes to remind them why the marked it. (T=T reminds you of another book, a smile face could mean funny and so on. Include your students’ input in creating a coding system.)
Website – prove your post-it
Anchor chart of various symbols to use (student/teacher generated)

17. Incorporating Components to the Writing Workshop What is a Writer’s Notebook?
It is…
A place to store your thoughts, feelings, observations, ideas, opinions, and more
A place to record your reactions
“A writer’s notebook gives you a place to live like a writer, not just in school during writing time, but wherever you are, at any time of day.”
From A Writer’s Notebook
by Ralph Fletcher
It is not…
A diary
Not a reading journal in which students write summaries, main ideas, or letters to characters per the teacher’s assignment
“The writer’s notebook nudges students to become more active learners. It gives them a place to react to their world. To make that all-important personal connection. And the notebook provides a safe place- no grades, no one correcting their grammar.”
School Talk, Writer’s Notebook: A Place to Dream, Wonder, and Explore, Ralph Fletcher
Different from the reading journal.
Here the students should not be held accountable for their grammar and punctuation, etc.
Strictly a collection of their writing thoughts and ideas.

18. What’s the difference? Writer’s notebook Reader’s notebook Portfolio
Writing folder
Writer’s notebook – covered already; reader’s notebook – booklist, book responses, book recommendation; Portfolios – finished pieces with rubrics passed on from Kindergarten to grade 4; some student selected work and some teacher selected work; writing folders – pieces in progress, writing handouts.

19. Teacher-Student Conferences
Listen—get to know the writer
Be positive—build on strengths
Focus on improving life-long writing skills
Focus on one teaching point (approximations)
“...in a conference our job is to interact with students so that they can interact with their writing, not just for five minutes but for a lifetime.”
Lucy Calkins (1991)
You want to take notes during the conference. How you do so is up to you: sheets of paper in a binder, notebook, or if you have resources from being a writer, you can use that as well. Conferencing is essential and not an option. First instinct is to correct grammar and punctuation, but that is not what a conference should be about (you can take notes on that but should not be a time edit it – address it).

20. Reading/Writing Conference
The video you are about to view is an example of how one teacher address a reading/writing conference with a student.

21. Time Management Teach each one of these things separately one per day.
Allow 20 minutes of independent reading and/or writing each day and two or three times a week small group or whole class discussions and share.
Remind the students daily of reading/writing workshop guidelines and usually after a few days they are doing very well with this.
You will build up to the 20 minutes of independent reading/writing each day (if you could do 30 that would be a great goal).
Split time between reading/writing. Refer to master schedule in packet is just an example – 15 minute time slots is not enough.

22. Bibliography
Calkins, L. (2006). Units of Study for Teaching Writing. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Fountas, I, & Pinnell, G (2001). Guiding Readers and Writers. Portsmouth: Heinemann.