The reading workshop is one component of a balanced reading program. The reading workshop is comprised of a minilesson, student reading time, a mid-workshop teaching point, and a teaching share time. Balanced Literacy also includes phonics, interactive read-aloud and a writing workshop.

Minilesson: Reading workshop begins with students gathering in the classroom meeting area for a short (10-15 minutes) minilesson. During the minilesson, we clearly state the teaching point and then demonstrate exactly what we want students to learn to do as readers. The students then have an opportunity to practice the skill or strategy during the minilesson, while receiving support. Later, readers will draw on this strategy independently, as needed. This follows the release of responsibility model for instruction. A teacher might, for example, determine that many students are having difficulty reading with fluency and therefore decide to teach them how to take in more of a sentence when they read. On a subsequent day, the teacher might help students realize that readers actually try to visually take in all of the words before the next piece of punctuation. I this way, one minlesson dovetails with the next so as to provide a series of progressively more complex instruction. Other minilessons will support students as they progress towards other proficiencies.

Student Reading Time with Conferring and Small Group Work: In most sixty minute reading workshops, teachers divide the work time between private time when students read quietly to themselves (30-45 min.) and partner time, when students meet to talk with their reading partners (5 min.) or book clubs (10-20 min.). After the minilesson, students read self-selected just-right books. Students read privately and quietly while the teacher moves about the classroom, conferring with individuals, or meeting with partnerships or clubs. The teachers will also be apt to lead a guided reading groups and/or one or more strategy lessons during this time.

Small Group Instruction: In many classrooms, teachers fit small group reading instruction into the reading workshop itself. Often as students read, teachers confer with a couple of readers and then meet with a small group. Ins ome classrooms, however, teachers have a separate time blocked for additional work with small groups of readers. Sometimes reading specialists ‘push in’ to the class at this time.

There are several many different formats for small group instruction; a few of those formats are described here:

Guided Reading: A guided reading group is generally comprised of students who are reading books at a similar level of difficulty. The teacher chooses a text that is at the students’ instructional reading level. (That is, with support from a few minutes long introduction, students will be able to read the text with, at the very minimum, 95% accuracy, fluency and comprehension.) At the beginning of the guided reading lesson, the teacher introduces the text so that students can read it on their own without major difficulty, while still encountering challenges the teacher has strategically chosen. During the introduction, the teacher might angle the reading in a particular way by saying something like, “Readers, when you read this, make sure you pay special attention to the punctuation because it will help you read smoothly.” The teacher watches as each student reads the text on his or her own. The teacher notices as readers puzzle out the tricky parts, and observes which strategies students use and do not use if they encounter difficulties. The teacher lightly coaches individual readers. Once students are finished with the text (or with the designated pages), the teacher makes a teaching point based on what he or she observed as the students read. Often the teacher will use a white board ot aid in this teaching. After, the teacher will usually ask students to revisit the book, trying the strategy that has just been taught. A guided reading lesson lasts less than fifteen minutes.

Strategy Lesson: During a strategy lesson, the teacher pulls together a small group of students who need similar coaching or support. These students may or may not be reading similarly leveled books; either way, they’d benefit from similar instruction. For example, students from a range of reading levels who need support with fluency could be assembled for a strategy lesson. At the start of a strategy lesson, the teacher shares her teaching point and may or may not briefly demonstrate what she wants to teach. The students then try the strategy using their own texts. The teacher coaches students as they read and try the strategy. Sometimes she may gather the cluster of students together at the end of this work to reinforce the teaching point. Strategy lessons tend to last ten minutes or less; during 90% of this time, students are working and the teacher is coaching.

Mid-Workshop Teaching Point: Often in the midst of a workshop, we convene students’ attention so that we can give a quick pointer in response to a shared problem we’re seeing or so we can share an example of what one reader has done that might help others. Sometimes these remind students of a prvious day’s lesson that has a special relevance, or to instruct students about their upcoming partner work, or to rally readers to work harder or longer. The mid-workshop teaching point usually takes no longer than a few minutes, and students generally stay in their reading spots rather than reconvening in the meeting area.

Teaching Share/Partner/Book Clubs: At the end of the workshop (after reading time), the teacher brings closure to the day’s work. This time is used to share ways in which students have incorporated that day’s minilesson into their work and to share their new insights or discoveries. The share session functions almost as a separate and smaller minilesson. It may arise from a particular conference in which the teacher notices a student doing strong reading work that merits being shared with the rest of the students. The share time usually last no longer than 5 minutes (generally 2 minutes) and sometimes leads into (or frames) partnerships or book club time.

During the read aloud, a teacher reads aloud to students in order to model and demonstrate the orchestration of strategies that characterize proficient reading. The read aloud is also a time when students receive instruction that helps them talk well about books. Thus, in addition to modeling the work of proficient, fluent, and engaged readers during read aloud time, the teacher also teaches students how to have accountable conversations about books. During this time students discuss their thoughts and ideas about the text, either as a group or in partnerships. These partnerships may be informal or longer-lasting. When choosing read-aloud texts, teachers aim to include a range of levels, genre, tones, and authors. Often a read aloud book is integral to many minilessons within a unit of study.

Click here for a full list of "just right" books.

The writing workshop, a daily component of balanced literacy, generally follows the same format as the reading workshop. It begins with a minilesson and is followed by independent writing time. During this time, students write about self-selected topics as the teacher confers with individuals or pulls together small groups of students who need the same kind of support. The teacher often stops the class to make a mid-workshop teaching point. Students then return to their writing. At the end of writing workshop, there is a teaching share time, led by the teacher, and this often sets up partnership sharing.

Jolly Phonics is a multi-sensory approach to teach children the sounds of the English language and their alphabetic representations.  Each sound is taught through a story with a picture clue and motion to help students remember the sound. 

Students are introduced to high-leverage phonics concepts and strategies in a way that keeps pace with students' reading and writing and helps them understand when, how, and why they can use phonics to read and write. The units are aligned with the reading and writing units at each grade level, K-2. Students also learn how to read and spell high-frequency words at each grade level.

Sitton Spelling/ Word Study is a nontraditional approach that is used to teach students spelling generalizations and high-frequency words. Students learn spelling rules and principles through investigations in the classroom. The program also focuses on the high-frequency words that are used in everyday writing. Students are expected to spell and use those words correctly in all of their writing situations, not just for assessments.