I thought the reading for this week was very helpful. Collins seems really well-versed on all of her mini lessons. I felt like that is the main thing I took away from reading her chapters. She likes to give a lot of mini lessons. And there were a lot of options for substitute mini lessons to convey the same idea. I appreciated how she went through all the things she said to children and all of their responses too. It really helped to hear how the conversation would go. I thought it was a little much to go through everything, but I also think it’s helpful that I can go back to it and see what her conversation with her students was like. It also gave me an idea of what reader workshop looks like in the lower grades. I don’t really see that at all in my classroom. They are learning how to read in Kindergarten so I’m wondering if it will happen next semester, but I think it’s really cool to see it done in first grade. I guess I always thought of reader’s workshop as an older grades task.
She also always starts out the point of her lessons with “Readers…” This is kind of like us saying good readers do… I like the fact that she does this in outlining her chapter as well as in what the students are learning. It shows that really what she is teaching is the same as what we should be reading…if that makes any sense. There’s no adult language like we are better than the students or something. It is just very consistent.
She had really great mini lessons that I think I will use in the future!
Nice post, Emily. I noticed the same thing about Collins starting phrases as “Readers.” In Mentor Texts, what I read for our literature circles, the teacher also always started her lessons as “readers…” or “writers…” and I thought that it made learning seem much more personal. It sends the message to our students that their work is valued and their work is important to creating a professional learning community. I was thinking that we could also call our students mathematicians and scientists during those respectable periods to foster the same attitude.
I also thought the minilessons were fun to read; it’s nice to see specific lessons in practice.