Reading in the Content Area

1. Methods of Teaching with a
Workshop Approach
Jeanne Tribuzzi
Sara Behrendt
Based on the work of Teachers’
College- Columbia University

2. Reader’s Workshop Structure
 Offers time, choice, response, appropriate reading level and
develops sense of community within a classroom
 Whole Group to Begin (Mini lesson) 10 minutes
 Reading Time 30 - 40 minutes
 Gather as a Group-
 Share Response to Reading-10 minutes

3. TheImpactof Reading
Gallagher, K. 2003

4. Literacy Process Expectations
Reading
Phonemic
Awareness
Phonics Fluency Vocabulary Comprehension
Best Practices
Modeled
Reading
Shared
Reading
Guided
Reading
Independent
Reading
Read Alouds
Think Alouds
Modeled
Fluency
Whole
Group
Lit Circles
Book Clubs
Partner
Reading
Vocabulary
Games
Flexible
Groups

Conferences
Differentiatio
n
Reading
Workshop
Self- Selected
Reading
Free Reading

5. Text for Reading
Instruction
How much time should students be reading text that
is…?
Easy- (independent reading level)
Instructional
Challenging
•Easy-Independent - 85%
•Instructional Reading- 15%
•Challenging- 0%

6. Making Your Teaching Stick
Strategies to Increase Retention and
Transfer

7. The Stickiness Principles
“Humans learn through a start-and-stop
process that frequently involves (partially)
learning something and losing it and then-
we hope-learning it again and trying to do
it as an approximation, and maybe learning
it again, until it finally sticks.”
-Shanna Schwartz
Our job as teachers is to provide the numerous
opportunities needed for a lesson to stick, so that
children move through the approximation period into
solid comprehension and use of a new concept.

8. Principle 1: Children Learn What
They Are Ready to Learn
Kids don’t watch when
they are stimulated
and look away when
they are bored. They
watch when they
understand and look
away when they are
confused.
-Malcom Gladwell

9. Principle 1: Children Learn What They
Are Ready to Learn- ZPD
 Children are more attentive and learn more when they
understand more.
 As educators, we know this principle as Vygotsky’s
Zone of Proximal Development

10. When teaching does not take hold, it is often out of
reach for students.
 Problems arise when the content and skills we need to
teach do not match what most children are ready to
learn. We must assess children first and then fit the
curriculum to their needs.

11.  A child who is ready to learn something will exhibit
signs of this readiness by using but confusing the
skill.
 When children are using but confusing
something, it usually means they are ready
to learn more about the skill or strategy
they are trying.
 This phase of approximation can help us choose
teaching that will be especially strong and sticky
because it will meet students where they are.
Zone of Proximal Development

12. Principle 2: Children Learn When
They Are Engaged
If you can hold the attention of children,
you can educate them.
– Malcolm Gladwell

13. Ways to engage students in learning:
Use stories to draw in your learners
“Children turn things into
stories, and when they try
to make sense of their
lives they use the stories
version of their experience
as a basis for further
reflection. If they don’t
catch things in narrative
structure, it doesn’t get
remembered very well.” –
Jerome Bruner

14. Ways to engage students in learning:
 Gestures
 When children participate in making a gesture, they
make a movement and this solidifies what they
have been taught.
 Use gestures to:
 Give students directions
 Illustrate a teaching point
 Give nonverbal prompts

15. Principle 3: Children Benefit from
Physical Representations of Their
Learning
AKA: Anchor Charts
“By physically putting our teaching
in our children’s hands, we are
sure to make it stick.”
– Shanna Schwartz

16. Signs are artifacts of the teaching that we
have done during mini-lessons
Signs should:
• Reference your teaching
• Be simple
• Include pictures
• Include words
They are displayed in the room to:
• Remind students of what they
• have learned
• To answer questions they have
• To help them out when they are
• having difficulty

17. Charts should be simple
 Display key words and
catch phrases that were
taught during the mini-
lesson
 The simplicity of
repeating the same words
from the lesson helps jar
children’s memory just as
familiar logos on
billboards remind us of
television commercials.

18. Including Pictures on Charts Will Make Them
More Accessible to Students
 If your students read
mostly books that have
pictures, then your
charts should have
pictures
 If your children use
pictures to help them
write, then your charts
need pictures too

19. Principle 4:
Children Learn Through-and Love-
Repetition
“If you learn to do something, but you don’t do it over and over,
chances are you will forget how to do it. We want our
children to turn the strategies we teach into habits, but
this won’t happen if they try a strategy once and then never
try it again. That is why repetition is so important to our
teaching.”
– Shanna Schwartz

20. Use Repetition with a Predictable
Structure
 Mini-lessons help teaching stick because they go the
same way every time.
 The structure of a mini-lesson becomes the road map,
helping children anticipate how teaching and learning
will go.
 The students know what to expect and also
know what is expected of them. They can use
all of their energy to learn the new content.

21. So now that we know the four factors that
are essential to effective teaching, How do
we make sure we are incorporating them into
our instruction?

22. Teach your partner the stickiness
principals
Take turns naming and explaining the 4
principles
Turn and Talk….

23. Architecture of a Mini-Lesson
An effective mini-lesson consists of four parts:
Connection
Teaching Point /
Demonstration
Active Engagement
Link

24. Connection
Purpose:
-Inspires and activates prior
knowledge
“We’ve been…”
-Names teaching point
“Today I am going to teach you…”
-Contextualizes lesson
“Because…”

25. Teaching Point / Demonstration:
Purpose: Explicitly teach the
skill and show students what
it looks like.
-Demonstrate the teaching point
as if you were working
independently
“Let me show you how I…”
-Think aloud about what you are
doing
“Hmmm…I’m thinking…”
-Restate the teaching point
“Did you see how I…”

26. Active Engagement:
Purpose: Provide the students with guided practice with the
new skill you’ve just taught them.
“Now you are going to have a try. You are going to…”
How you have the students practice the teaching point (TP) will depend on
the strategy you are teaching. You may have the students:
• turn and talk about the TP with a partner
• examine a piece of text while they think about the TP
• write their thinking about the TP on a sticky note

27. Link
Purpose:
Rename the teaching point and link it to future work.
-”So today and everyday…”
-”Anytime you are…you can…”
-“From this point on….”
-“You have many ways of doing this, now you have a new one”
Send the students off to begin their independent work.
-“Off you go!”

28. The architecture of mini-lessons allows for
the teaching point to be repeated five times
over the course of the lesson.
 Today I want to teach you…
 Watch me as I …
 Did you notice how I…
 Now it’s your turn to try this.
 So readers, anytime you want to…
Each of these phrases is followed by the repetition of the teaching point.
These familiar phrases will act like labels on a map, helping children navigate
their way through your teaching.

29. What Else Will You Need?

30. High School Interns

31. Classroom Libraries?

32. Classroom Libraries?

33. The Classroom Library
http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/
Beth Newingham’s Website