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Introduction:
Any veteran teacher will tell you that the beginning of the school year is a crucial time for shaping students’ behavior. If your students learn good habits early on, you will be able to accomplish a much greater amount of academic work later. We have put together this unit to help you develop a community of readers and foster positive routines & behaviors during reading workshop. In this unit of study, you will find a compilation of essential concepts & practices to introduce and address early in the school year. Each of the suggested topics are meant to be introduced within the first month of school, but should spiral up and be built upon over time. If you think through these concepts and develop lessons to address them, your students should be in a good place at the end of the first month of school and you will have built a strong foundation for the remainder of the year!
Rationale:
It is essential that we study with our students the process of developing a sense of oneself as a reader. We also believe students need predictable structures and routines to make reading workshop a productive time for all. They need to be part of a classroom community of readers that fosters collaboration, independence, reflection, and encourages risk taking and questioning. By developing this climate of intimacy right from the start, students will be more apt to tackle rigorous content with an inquiry approach throughout the year… and hopefully develop a lifelong love for reading, writing, thinking and learning!
Essential Questions:
- How can we develop a successful reading community in our classroom?
- What are the characteristics of a good reader?
- What does a good reader need?
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