Happy New Year! We started 2012 off with a great week back at school, and many students came back from their Christmas break with NEW books that they were excited to read! One of my students listed off all of the new books he had gotten for Christmas and then told me that he was now "set for the rest of the year!" I was thrilled to hear this and to see so many students excited to tell me what books they got Christmas' I love to see my students LOVE READING!
Prior to Christmas break (as I mentioned before) we took some "time off" from Reading Workshop with Choices and strictly did Read to Self while completing certain tasks on an Independent Reading Contract. I used this change in our routine to guage students feelings and attitudes towards having choices in Reading Workshop in a different way. Upon returning from break I had the students complete a survey a few questions regarding which approach to Reading Workshop they enjoyed the most, and the results speak for themselves.
Question 1 asked: How did you feel about doing the Independent Reading Contract before Christmas instead of having choices in Reading Workshop?
1 = LOVE IT! 4 = LIKE IT! 10 = Ho Hum... 9 = Don't Like It!
Question 2 asked: How would you feel about changing Reading Workshop and doing more contracts like what we did before Christmas?
1 = LOVE IT! 2 = LIKE IT! 9 = Ho Hum... 12 = Don't Like It!
Question 3 asked: How would you feel about continuing to have choices in Reading Workshop like we usually do?
18 = LOVE IT! 4 = LIKE IT! 2 = Ho Hum... 0 = Don't Like It!
I also asked the students a more open ended questions about which approach to Reading Workshop students prefered and why... and again the responses were overwhelming. The majority of the students prefer Reading Workshop with Choices, for reasons such as: I like not doing the same thing everyday. I get to read in different ways which is more fun. Because it is better to work with friends.
The final question on the survey was a complete this sentence questions: In 4th Grade Reading Workshop is... Students answered this in a variety of ways: Fun! Awesome! Nice! Very Helpful! but the one that stuck out the most to be and helped to validate everything I am doing was the one that read: Great when we have choices!
Last week Reading Workshop was back to having choices, but not fully "back to normal" as we did not have a story out of our reading hardcover book. Instead we launched the next theme in our reading book called: That's Amazing! by doing a short study on Tall Tales. Students enjoyed reading and doing activities relating to a variety of different Tall Tales. This week we will be fully back to our routine with a story out of our reading hardcover book as well.
As I went over the student's Reading Logs this weekend I did notice some students getting lazy with their logging. I did have to be gone for 2 days last week, so part of it may have been not having me there to give my usual reminders, but I also took this to mean that this may be a good time of year to review the expectations of Reading Workshop and all of the different choices, so that will be on our list of things to do this week....
Happy Teaching! Have a great week!
Your blog has great detail. I really get a good impression of what you are doing just by reading a few posts. I like that you changed it up for a few weeks. I think students need change from time to time or things become too predictable and predictable is boring. The few students that don't like all the choice, what do you do with them? I think you are doing awesome and it sounds like your kids are learning and having fun, which is the ultimate goal. Nice job!
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