Predictable Classroom Structures

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Predictable Classroom Structures

• It is significant to realize the most creative
  environments in our society are not the
  ever-changing ones. The artists studio, the
  researchers laboratory, the scholars library
  are each deliberately kept simple so as to
  support the complexities of the
  works-in-progress. They are kept predictable so
  that the unpredictable can happen.
• Lucy Calkins, Lessons From a Child, 1983

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Readers and Writers Workshops

• Management
• Materials
• Methods

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Management

• The way the room is arranged makes
• a statement about what you value.
• Think about
• Arranging desks for optimal learning
• Creating an area for gathering
• Having all teaching materials handy
• Designating a place for conferencing
• Reserving space for peer conferencing
• Moving students from place to place

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Management

• Teaching students how to interact
• Think about
• How and when do we get in a line, take turns,
  get to
• speak, ask for help, share our materials
• Building a community Please, Thank-you,
• May I, Excuse me, listen to each
  other,
• respond to each other
• Level of voices outside voices, inside voices,
• conference voices, lunchroom voices
• Holding each other responsible for the rules

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Materials

• Writers Workshop
• Three writing folders per student
• A Writers Notebook per student
• Chart stand and Chart paper
• Markers
• Paper, pencils, pens, and Post-it Notes
• Large 3-ring binder for your conference
• documentation
• 12 Mentor or Touchstone texts

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Materials

• Readers Workshop
• One reading folder per student (or 3-Ring
  binder)
• with 3 sections
• Book logs
• Responses
• Assessment data
• Large 3-ring binder for your conference
  documentation
• Book bags
• Post-it Notes

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Artifacts

• Tells what is being taught in your classroom..
• Posting student work
• Posting the standards
• Displaying charts
• Having Mentor/ Touchstone Texts
• Starting a Classroom library
• Having a Word Wall
• Keeping Conference Documentation

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Making Materials Accessible

• Think about
• Where will I hold conferences?
• Where might I organize a classroom library?
• Where will I put the Writers Notebooks, writing
  folders, reading folders and book bags?
• How will students get paper, pencils, pens,
  sharpen pencils and throw away paper?
• Where will my Word Wall go?
• Do I have wall space to display our charts?
• Where will I put the charts once the students
• dont need them every day?

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Methods

• The Workshop Model
• What we do EVERY day
• and
• HOW we do it

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Writers Workshop

• Mini-Lesson
• 10 minutes
• Focused Work and Study
• 40 minutes
• Authors Chair
• 10 minutes

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Readers Workshop

• Mini-Lesson
• 10 minutes
• Focused Work and Study
• 40 minutes
• Readers Chair
• 10 minutes

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Time for Skills

• K-2 explicit instruction every day with
• sound structures and in the workshops
• 3-5 skill instruction happens in the
• workshops
• Open Court Phonics Kits are used in most
• of your schools
• Students need two kinds of knowledge to
• help them read
• 1. Exposure to print
• 2. Direct teaching of graphophonic
• relationships (Wilde 1997)

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Developmental Sequence for Reading Skills

• 1. Phonemic Awareness
• Games, rhymes, word play
• 2. Phonics
• Letters
• Beginning consonants
• Ending consonants
• Short vowels

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Reading Skills continued

• Word blending
• Letter combinations
• Onsets and Rimes
• Other phonemic elements (inventive spelling)
• 3. Accuracy and Fluency
• 4. Self- correcting and self- monitoring
• 5. Comprehension
• 6. Vocabulary

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Language Skills

• K-2 taught during the Skills period or
• during the workshops
• 3-5 taught during the workshops
• Spelling, Capitalization and Punctuation
• Grammar (parts of speech)
• Sentence structure
• Vocabulary noticings and usage

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Predictable Structures

• Gives children a safe and
• predictable environment
• Gives the classroom a
• sense of community
• Gives you time to teach