Getting Ready to Begin the New School Year!

We had a great time this week at our first get together since the Reading Institute in New York. It was fun and exciting to talk and share with everyone and to make plans for implementing workshops in our classrooms and share our learnings with our colleagues who were not able to be in New York with us. And lunch was great! Thanks Jane!

I left the meeting with books to read, ideas to work out, and excitement over the possibilities. Next up: meeting with our new principal to share the new strategies and spread our excitement of literacy workshops as we work with her to set up our timeline for the year.

Since returning from the Reading Institute,  I read "A Guide to the Reading Workshop" by Lucy Calkins (the book we all received from TCRWP). It was a great review of the critical parts of the workshop that make the reading workshop so successful with all students. I especially focused on the section on conferring, the area of reading workshop that has been the most challenging for me. I am excited to begin the new year with more strategies and skills for conferring with my students more effectively. In my afternoon session at the Institute with Jen Serravallo (Small Group Instruction), I learned very specific ways to raise the level of reading with all learners (aka differentiation). Her book "Conferring with Readers" is a favorite of mine. I am now reading her second book "Teaching Reading in Small Groups". Great books! I am eager to implement these strategies with my new class!