Erin Marie @erinmarieyevins - Tumblr Blog

"Think of it as a literacy workshop rather than a reading or writing workshop."

-Sherbs

Writing Workshops

I think that the writing workshop is a great way for students to learn how to write at their own pace. In the Samway reading I was amazed by the students. One child said that he didn't write anything that day because he was reading poetry books to learn how to do it. Not many children I know would willingly pick up a poetry book because they wanted to. It impresses me that the children have this drive to write as opposed to teachers just telling students to write and how to write it. In the writing workshop some students are reading, some are writing, some are editing, and some are publishing their final copies. They are learning from books that they choose and from one another with the teacher there as a guide. This is a great style to teach writing, because not everyone works at the same pace. Sometimes one child might come up with more ideas or want to do more research and need a third or fourth draft while one child writes theirs perfectly on the first try. This style of teaching allows for that, which I think is a great technique.

When I was in elementary school, we mainly did the cookie cutter writing assignments where every last detail was dictated. Write a paper about what you're thankful for (Thanksgiving), write a letter to your mother (Mother's day), write a paper about Martin Luther King Jr. It didn't allow for much creativity or for any chance to individualize your work. Some works may have stood out from others for quality, but the writing that wasn't as good maybe just wasn't as good because the child didn't have the opportunity to showcase their skills. Overall, the writing workshop seems to be a better way to teach writing to elementary students which gets them engaged and excited to write stories. Most importantly, during that process, the students are willing to learn.

ksherbz-blog

“If we mean it when we say we want children to become lifelong readers, if we mean it when we say we want children to actively engage in text for a variety of purposes and for increasingly long periods of time, we can’t teach them to make book selections based on words alone.” (Miller, pp. 52-59)

brookecharlie

[The students] needed to do something when they finished reading a book. But what? Design book jackets? Draw a picture of their favorite part? Make puppets of the book’s characters? Rewrite endings? My kids did all these things- and loved every minute…but…these activities were keeping children from doing what we know helps them learn to read best: reading. If reading workshop is all about real reading, it must be about responding in real ways, too.

(Miller, p. 61)

This put a new perspective on strategies that I thought were good post-reading activities.

(via brookecharlie)

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READING BEHAVIORS YO

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Differentiation- learners start with the whole or bigger concepts (like marks on a page that tell a story) and then begin to move toward a specific understanding of how it works (i.e., letters create words that tell a story)

Decentration- learners begin to understand that in order for a wider…

brookecharlie

“In schools we usually teach to groups, though children – like the rest of us – learn as individuals in the context of groups” (Bissex, p. 197).

“How does a child move from a global, pre-spelling concept of letter forms expressing a message to a concept of writing that includes representing…

cat5262

Bissex, Patterns of Development & Watching Young Writers

“ ‘Differentiation,’ a term developmental psychologists borrowed from biology, us the subdividing of what was earlier a diffuse whole into parts with more specialized forms and functions” (Bissex, pg.198) In simpler terms, reading and learning to read are made up of many parts. Rather than stages, there are many features of reading that learners develop over time in order to reach the end goal of being literate. This reading used the example of the little boy who first used symbols to represent feelings; A common first form of literacy. Even I, at the tender age of 3, used to draw shard squiggles and aggressive lines to show angers towards my annoying brothers. Children use shapes and expressive drawing because we have not yet mastered or obtained the words to verbally express these emotions.

After this, the little boy began using sound-letter relationships based on the names of the letters, such as, “RUDF” (are you deaf?). I found this to be one of the cleverest features of language learning discussed. To me, this understanding of writing and reading is creative genius; so creative, that even as adults we struggle to translate it. Without our directions, kids are able to recognize the letter names and find interesting ways to use them to create words!

From here kids begin to ask more questions, they are curious about language. Having many years of verbal communication under their belt they are anxious to be able to create words themselves. All around them they see signs, newspapers, shows, tons of words! Their goal, even without us having to motivate them, is to learn these writing skills so they can start communicating their own ideas.

A more advanced feature of writing and literacy, which follows, is decentration. Bisex introduces Piaget’s definition of this term as, “… movement outward from the young child’s egocentric view of the world. Decentration involves being able to take another person’s point of view…” (Page 200). Basically, the children are able to think in someone elses shoes. They understand how different writings have different audiences, and how this in return, effects the writing. They are able to distinguish their own understanding of writing from a readers understanding.

"Reading-like behavior as it occurs in young children, possesses two major characteristics. In its initial stage it is usually extremely fluent and expressive, and resembles the reading of a competent adult reader." -Doake

Harmony's reading resembles the initial reading-like behavior stage. She holds the book up as an adult would, is very expressive and engaging, and she sounds like she is reading the book. But if you watch the video closely, you can tell that she is 'reading' more words than are actually on the page. It is obvious that someone in her life is reading to her, and doing it often. She has the ability to 'read' the entire story from start to finish (and other books in Spanish whaaaaat?) without forgetting or pausing. It is truly an impressive skill

An article I read (for this class or another, I forget) talks about how children's first language is pictures. They learn to interpret the pictures that correlate with text to assist them in reading. I believe that this also helps Harmony to remember the words of the book. All in all it is extremely impressive.

Sorry it's late!!!