Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Guide to the Reading Workshop: Primary - Chapter 8 Management Systems

A Guide to the Reading Workshop: Primary Grades by Lucy Calkins
                             *This review includes content from the chapter and content from the discussion

Led by kindergarten teacher Sarah Hawas - to see Sarah's video

BIG ideas in Chapter 8
Management Systems?
 
"Why do so many people assume that classroom management is a concern for novice and struggling teachers but not for master teachers?"
The importance of structures and systems
  • Reading and Writing mirror each other.  If the structures are predictable, the children can concentrate on the content.
Learning classroom management systems and strategies
  • "The best way I know to learn classroom management strategies is to visit well established reading and writing workshops to study the infrastructure that underlies this kind of teaching."
 Managing the mini-lesson: The beginning of each day's reading instruction
  • Convening the class for the mini-lesson
    • Build a "set up" before asking the children to join you
    • Develop your own signal to get the students' attention and use it consistently
    • Demonstrate -act out- procedure of pushing in chair, make a beeline to their spot. sit, handle materials the way you expect, and begin reading the anchor charts while waiting.
    • Do not repeat yourself.  Expect first time listeners.
  • Establishing long-term partnerships and reading clubs
    • We drew so many different pictures
       and took photographs to identify
      independent and partner reading -
      who knew we could just draw circles?
      Pair students at similar reading levels
    • Back-to-back for Private reading and knee-to-knee-shoulder-to-shoulder with book in between for partner reading
    • K &1 start with private reading and switch to partner reading at the halfway point
    • Clubs are usually two ability grouped partners
    • Club conversations take part during share
  • Management during mini-lessons
    • Mini-lessons are more teacher talk
    • What to do when your partner is absent - join another group
    • Teach turn and talk explicitly 
Managing reading time
  • Sending students off to work: transitions from mini-lesson to work time
    • Teach dismissal explicitly
    • 
      Confer app
      Transitions are smoother if children always know where they will sit during reading time
  • Nature of children's work during the Reading Workshop
    • Never done reading
    • "Ask 3 before me"
Managing conferring and small group work: Making one-to-one conferences and small group instruction possible
  • See about 3 children a day for individual conferences
  • Consider table conferences
  • Need a system for who to meet with
  • Develop a system for recording conferences
  • Digit apps were suggested for note taking, Confer and Brightloop
Brightloop app


Managing the share
  • Never skip the share - the brain remembers the last thing
Managing the classroom library
  • Make it easy to find just right books with letter and genre labels
  • Manage how students change out books
  • Gather enough books
Next assignment: 1-14-16 at 8:20 - Chapter 9:Small-Group Work: Developing a Richer Repertoire of Methods, Tammi Sani's room




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