Workshop Information

Beginning of the school year independent reading will look very different from the end of the year in Kindergarten. Students come in as emergent readers not usually as conventional readers. Students may only start by "reading" the pictures and telling a story. If a child enters Kindergarten already reading as a conventional reader they will read books on their academic level depending on the child's knowledge of print. Our literacy time consists of Reader's Workshop, Writer's Workshop, Read Alouds, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, and Words Their Way.

Reader's workshop begins with a mini lesson focused on our Language Arts topic for the week (non fiction, theme and genre, poetry, fairy tales, media literacy, etc.) or a reading strategy. After our mini lesson students will work on skills independently. During this time they will work on building stamina for reading by reading books during Read to Self time. Students will also read with a partner "Read to Someone", during this time the teacher will be conferencing with students or pulling small groups for guided instruction. During the first few weeks of school we will be working on learning what Reader's workshop looks like, sounds like, and how we participate to be the best readers we can be.

Writer's Workshop: The teacher provide a mini lesson then students will break off and work on their writing independently. Beginning writers will draw pictures, after time start to label pictures, and will emerge as a writer by writing words then sentences.

Words Their Way focuses on Word Study, students will manipulate, examine, and compare words to make discoveries about how words work. We start with rhyming, sorting, and 1:1 correspondence of written words, then move on to grouping words into word families so students can notice patterns in words