Beginning in 2006-2007, Trinity school will implement the Reading and Writing Workshop curriculum in preschool through grade 5.  Elements of the curriculum will also be implemented in the UpperSchool.

What is it?

Reading and writing workshops are instructional strategies as well as organizational frameworks for language arts instruction. These strategies are in the Balanced Literacy model of delivering instruction of the language arts curriculum. In the workshop, students participate in three broad areas: a mini-lesson conducted by the teacher, activity time, and sharing time. In the workshop strategy, students hold most of the decision-making power regarding material to be read or written, and responses to that reading or writing (although this is within parameters planned and organized by the teacher). The teacher participates as more of a coach or facilitator during workshop time. Some teachers also use the workshop strategy as an organizational framework, having students participate in the activity part of the workshop while meeting with reading groups to teach other parts of the balanced literacy model.

Basic Steps:

1. Students gather around the teacher for a mini-lesson on a specific reading or writing strategy that the teacher has noticed is needed by the majority of the group. Mini-lessons are kept to 5 –10 minutes.
2. Students participate in activity time. In Reading Workshop, students read, respond and participate in peer and teacher conferences. In writing workshop, students participate in all stages of the writing process, and participate in peer and teacher conferences.
3. The workshop time is concluded with a sharing session, where students share what has been read or written, or share ideas they have come to during the workshop.

This center based approach allows a teacher the flexibility to have time to work with individual or small groups of children in order to remediate when needed and enrich and extend when needed.

The goal is to promote independent learning so reading and writing becomes a lifelong habit. As children become better readers, they also become better writers. The Reading and Writing Workshop format provides a literacy context for building connections between the reading and writing processes while also providing opportunities for improving comprehension, phonemic awareness, and fluency.

An important key to this curriculum is the development and use of classroom libraries.  Our goal is to have at least 1000 books in each classroom – preschool through grade 8.  During the spring 2006, we will be having a book drive this spring to help us reach this goal.