Final Thoughts

Overall, we really enjoyed this book! It is easy to read and offers a lot of practical advice for teaching comprehension in the primary grades. At times, we questioned if all of Miller's ideas could actually be implemented in a real classroom...but we have walked away with a better understanding of how reader's workshop operates.


We were disappointed that we didn't start this in September. Miller's beginning chapters offer many different ways to create an atmosphere where reading is valued. The routines of teaching reading provide opportunities for quality comprehension instruction to take place. We are looking forward to implementing some of these ideas from the start next year!


We really enjoyed using some of the lessons in our classrooms. We found ourselves making an effort to teach differently and introduce new concepts. (Our kids know about schema!) The literature suggestions for teaching the different strategies are extremely helpful. It is convenient and reassuring to know that the books have been used (successfully) when teaching a specific strategy.


After reading this book, we have improved our comprehension instruction in our classrooms. We have anchor lessons to use as a starting point for teaching our students to comprehend. It is a good resource that we will refer to in the future.

Chapter 7: Digging Deeper

Chapter 7 answered some of the questions we had about how to get children to make meaningful connections. We all have students who love to tell stories in class and we need to make sure we can direct our students to "dig deeper" and share and respond thoughtfully to one another. Miller uses frequent modeling and think-aloud strategies to help kids think before they join a conversation to make sure they have something meaningful to contribute.

Miller is also a fan of book clubs for students in the primary grades. She has her students choose their books for the club from those that they have already read as a class. She organizes her groups with 4 to 5 boys and girls with different views, interests, and abilities to keep things interesting for the kids and to expose them to new ideas. She has one group meet per week so each group participates about once every 5 weeks. Our group likes the structure of the clubs but would like to have the clubs meet more often. We would like to have each group meet about once a week. Maybe if we had all the groups meet at the same time during class, we could make that work. That way, all students in the class would be participating instead of doing other tasks while one club met.

Readers' Workshop involves a lot of responding to text and tracking students' own thinking. You can have the kids do this by using the ever popular sticky notes, notebook entries, two-column notes, Venn diagrams, webs, or story maps.

Work Activity Time is Miller's idea of how to give students free time to explore their learning and do creative activities of their choice. She lets her kids do almost anything they choose with no restrictions. We wondered how her students stay on task rather than just "playing". She hopes that one day her students will choose to make inferences about animals, create charts synthesizing learning about planets, and make cutaway diagrams of the Earth. We think this might be putting a little too much pressure on young kids. My kindergarten students enjoy playtime and need that free time for parallel play and to build relationships. Its really neat to see the creativity and imaginations that the kids have but we wondered how realistic Miller's idea of Work Activity Time is.

Chapter 6: Creating Mental Images

First an update:  I have tried the word schema in my classroom also! I have felt like a "better" teacher, by being able to read students great books that they can make connections to!  They have loved the books that were suggested in our book and have been able to use their schema to make connections.  My next step is to identify good connections.

This chapter goes beyond schema and has students creating mental images.  Miller begins with think-alouds to show her students how to create the images and make the text  "come alive."  She has the students lay down and put a thumbs up when they create an image.  She asks her students to tell her what they think about creating mental images.  I love how she asks their opinion and it is great to hear what they say.  

One of our favorite parts of this chapter was when Miller discussed that schema has a lot to do with a student's mental images.  Miller reads aloud several poems to the students, several times.  She encourages the students to take a copy of a poem and capture the image in their head and draw it on a piece of paper.  The students then shared and saw how everyone's pictures were different!  Miller labeled a bulletin board "Why are our mental images different?  Our schema is different!"  We loved it and hope to try it soon in our classroom!  

Do you have your students ever draw or paint their mental images?  I did a great project with snow poems.  The students had to draw their mental images on black paper with chalk.  They loved it!  

I think that schema definitely has a place in a child making connections in their reading. When I read the literary excepts in my book for book club, I immediately make connections. It brings a deeper understanding and emotional tie to the text. For some people this is done automatically. I don’t ever remember anyone showing or instructing me how to accomplish this strategy. I assume it came naturally. It is important for our students to connect to their text, either emotionally or factually to assist them with their comprehension. Barbara

Chapter 5: Schema

In chapter 5, Miller gave some great suggestions for helping students use their schema. She stressed the importance of planning, authenticity and precise language. Attending to these concepts can help prevent awkward and ineffective lessons. She offered specific suggestions for language to use with the children and recommended books that are appropriate when introducing schema. She suggests beginning with text-to-self connections and then moving to text-to-text, ending with text-to-world. Using think-alouds as she reads quality literature, she shares her thought processes with the group.

Our group decided we would try some of Miller's suggestions this week. We wanted to introduce the word schema and use some the books she suggested to "think-aloud" making text-to-self connections.

When I first said the word "schema" my kids giggled They thought it sounded funny! We read Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola (which tied in nicely with a character ed lesson on bullying :), Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and Koala Lou by Mem Fox. We made a charts of their connections and next week we are going to look again at our chart for Koala Lou and figure out which ones help us the most with our reading. My class was definitely making connections, though not all of them were meaningful ("I saw a koala at the zoo.") I'm looking forward to examining the connections we're making and helping them understand how to make connections that really help them with the story.

We'll keep you posted on our progress!

Chapter 4: Settling In

In Chapter 4, Miller discusses what she does with her students toward the end of September as they are "settling in" to their reader's workshop. She said that at this point her students know what good readers do, and now they are ready to learn how.
The first step is to help students learn how to select books to read. Readability is not the only factor in selecting appropriate books. Content can also be a powerful motivator for students even if the book is written above their level. I think we all know a student or two who loves reading books simply because they are about their favorite topic: baseball, dinosaurs, princesses, etc. Students who have a broad schema of a topic may be able to read books that are not at their level because of their familiarity and experience with the vocabulary that relates to their topic. We should try not to discourage students to avoid certain books because they are "too hard" if they have the background knowledge to support them as they are reading.
Miller stresses the importance of having students explain why they chose certain books to read and think about what they know about themselves as readers. She talks about how she models making choices to her students and helps them practice making good book selections during reader's workshop. Strategies that she suggests using to help students make good choices are:
-book talks
-sticky notes- to write notes and recommendations to students
-read-alouds- to share some of the books students are reading with other students
-recommending charts- this is the picture on the first page of the chapter that my group was really interested in before we read but it was only briefly mentioned in this chapter. Students write recommendations to classmates about books they have read and why they think someone might like them. It was an interesting idea but we questioned the logisitics of having students do this. What if only a few students recommend books? What if someone goes to the chart looking for a recommendation but no one has listed them on the chart for a book they might like? How do you keep kids from being left out yet still keep the recommendations authentic and not forced?
-go looking together- take a student by the hand and help
-pick one- offer 3 choices and have the student pick one
-conferring
Miller also describes a special bin of "start off stories" she keeps in her classroom that are appropriate for most of her students. They have more words than the books they usually read but the pictures match the words and the text is predictable so they are a good stepping stone for the students. This was an interesting idea that my group discussed.
We had many questions about creating a classroom library that is suitable for a reader's workshop like this one. First, where do teachers get all of the books they use? The books have to be on a variety of levels but also must be quality literature. Next, once you have the books, how do you level them? Do you put limitations on the books that students choose? It seems like it could take years to develop a library like the one Miller has.
Finally, we were wondering about how Miller follows the curriculum during her reader's workshop? Where are the guidelines and how is she sure that she is teaching the appropraite content for her students? Maybe she will clear this up in the next chapter after she has her students "settled in" to their workshop.

Chp. 3 Readers' Workshop: Real Reading from the Start

In Chapter 3, Debbie Miller discusses that her first grade students began "reading" from the start of the school year.  Each table of students had their own basket of books.  Miller also put in the songs that they had sung in class.  We wished that we could sing more in our classrooms!!! We also loved that Miller began her school year by making charts with her students.  She would have them talk about people they know that read and what do you see them doing.  Some answers included: reading newspapers; going to the library and checking out lots of books; and reading a lot.  Over the next few weeks, students observed what readers do.  They did this in the classroom and at home.  The children also payed attention to where readers read.  

Miller would then send her students off to read.  Some students chose to sing the songs they knew, others chose to look at pictures in books, while others were reading.  Miller would confer with students about their reading.  Now she is trying to find out about them as readers and take notes.  After conferring, Miller would have the students share about what they did that day.

We really liked this chapter and felt like Miller had great ideas.  I liked how she really modeled the behavior that she liked.  She also found the teachable moments to set rules in the classroom, instead of making a list at the beginning of the year.  We are anxious to read the next chapter because we love the picture at the beginning! Stay tuned!

Some Common Themes in Our Reading

Funny how the "rigor, inquiry, and intimacy" keeps popping up from one book to the next. I think most teachers get the rigor part, but the inquiring and intimacy are the components that may be missing in many classrooms. Not ours!--but I think many teachers do not see the the need for students to challenge the text and ask questions or to build a climate that is conducive to feeling safe and intimate. I also like the notion of building around a four to six week plan. This allows for connecting many different texts to a common theme or purpose for reading, and that helps students make more connections and, hopefully, see the big picture. Sometimes, it is all a bit idealistic, and things will not work out as planned everyday, but as long as we are trying to achieve these lofty ideals, we are headed in the right direction. (I hope I am posting to your blog in the right place. If not, I apologize. Jean)

In the book Reading with Meaning by Debbie Miller, she outlines the components of effectively teaching reading comprehension in a Reader's Workshop. In the first chapter, she reminds us how important it is to base our teaching on research. Miller stresses that we need to consider the research and actively think about our own thinking as we are instructing. She also discussed how it is essential to plan and really look at the big picture. She advocates creating a plan for a six-to-eight week period of time. At first, this seemed incredibly difficult to me. The abilities and needs in my first-grade classroom change every week. How would I be able to plan for two months? But Miller is talking about a "big picture plan," one that guides her daily teaching and can change as necessary.

Chapter 2 outlined how to create a community in September that allows for readers to flourish. She discussed the necessity of building relationships and a community with "rigor, inquiry and intimacy." We all agreed that we strive to do this and completely agree that is necessary. Miller believes we need to "show" rather than just "tell" students how to behave. Though we do this, we questioned how effective and easy it is to do. In our primary classrooms, we constantly remind the kids to gather nicely on the rug. And when they push and shove, we discuss other options for gathering and we practice what to do. But the next time we gather, we have to discuss it all over again. Does our "showing" really stick? And sometimes at the end of the day when the office is calling for a student and Joe is crying because he tripped, when Luis pushes another student on the way to the coatroom, it is hard to show and discuss other ways to behave. But it was nice to step back, especially in the middle of February, and consider September and our anticipation for the beginning the school year. How far away it seems!

Now that we have some background information, we are excited to read on and learn about specific strategies that we can use in the classroom!