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!