As educational leaders, we have a duty to help our teachers navigate the Workshop Model within this new framework of remote teaching. It's a challenge because much of what makes the Workshop Model successful is the hands-on approach to teaching and learning that it promotes. It also creates a really wonderful relationship between the teacher and the student. We all value this so much. I love the "read aloud." This technique encourages a love of literacy and helps students connect with teachers and classmates through reading. When utilized correctly, students learn skills from master teachers how to use core reading strategies and skills that they can apply to their own reading to grow as readers.
Yet, I find that often we can misuse them by either overusing the read aloud by teaching a new strategy every single day. This is all too tempting with Zoom. Teachers are working so hard to connect with their students and to continue to instill a love of literacy. I am so grateful to them for their dedication. At this point, I think we are ready to work on using Zoom in a capacity that really enables students to grow as readers.
The core educational point of a read-aloud is to teach a strategy/skill that can then be applied by a student to his or her own text. If we never get past simply reading a book to a child and having them fill out a graphic organizer, then we aren't allowing students to think for themselves and explore their own learning in a new way using a new skill.
Yet, it's so tempting to post a daily video of a read-aloud. It's all too tempting to introduce a new topic quickly have kids "apply it" with the very book you read and then move on. Yet, if you stop and do one read aloud a week, or even a few a week focusing in, honing in on one core strategy or one core skill and letting kids create the same chart you did on your easel (virtual one albeit) using their own marble composition notebook (or even white paper) with their own book, they are owning the process. They will remember it more. This may mean that your "daily video" that sometimes is reading might not always be a read-aloud.
I would propose you use zoom to teach literacy skills as follow:
Model a mentor text using your online easel to create your anchor chart. Show kids in the text (highlight the ebook) where you found text evidence to support the skill/strategy you are teaching. Then, using a shorter text to involve the students in the learning experience helping you identify the skill or strategy in that shorter text that is shared online for them to see the screen in zoom. Have them help you complete a chart using this skill/strategy. At the end of the zoom give them instructions; ask them to read a story on their own using what you taught them, applying it. You can show them how to sketch a chart they can create in their own notebook.
Afterward, the student can work on that as an assignment and submit it on Seesaw with an audio/audio-visual recording of their thought process when completing the chart walking the teacher through how they applied the strategy/skill to their text.
After having done this, you can spend 2-3 days working with small groups reinforcing this skill on their level in an online guided reader (like the Rigby's HMH has or the level readers from F & P, but there are MANY more). Guided reading online in zoom enables you to work with small groups and really hear children read and specifically and directly guide their reading forward using books that are on their instructional level. Zooming for 10-20 minutes per group can really help each learner grow.
Yet, I find that often we can misuse them by either overusing the read aloud by teaching a new strategy every single day. This is all too tempting with Zoom. Teachers are working so hard to connect with their students and to continue to instill a love of literacy. I am so grateful to them for their dedication. At this point, I think we are ready to work on using Zoom in a capacity that really enables students to grow as readers.
The core educational point of a read-aloud is to teach a strategy/skill that can then be applied by a student to his or her own text. If we never get past simply reading a book to a child and having them fill out a graphic organizer, then we aren't allowing students to think for themselves and explore their own learning in a new way using a new skill.
Yet, it's so tempting to post a daily video of a read-aloud. It's all too tempting to introduce a new topic quickly have kids "apply it" with the very book you read and then move on. Yet, if you stop and do one read aloud a week, or even a few a week focusing in, honing in on one core strategy or one core skill and letting kids create the same chart you did on your easel (virtual one albeit) using their own marble composition notebook (or even white paper) with their own book, they are owning the process. They will remember it more. This may mean that your "daily video" that sometimes is reading might not always be a read-aloud.
I would propose you use zoom to teach literacy skills as follow:
Model a mentor text using your online easel to create your anchor chart. Show kids in the text (highlight the ebook) where you found text evidence to support the skill/strategy you are teaching. Then, using a shorter text to involve the students in the learning experience helping you identify the skill or strategy in that shorter text that is shared online for them to see the screen in zoom. Have them help you complete a chart using this skill/strategy. At the end of the zoom give them instructions; ask them to read a story on their own using what you taught them, applying it. You can show them how to sketch a chart they can create in their own notebook.
Afterward, the student can work on that as an assignment and submit it on Seesaw with an audio/audio-visual recording of their thought process when completing the chart walking the teacher through how they applied the strategy/skill to their text.
After having done this, you can spend 2-3 days working with small groups reinforcing this skill on their level in an online guided reader (like the Rigby's HMH has or the level readers from F & P, but there are MANY more). Guided reading online in zoom enables you to work with small groups and really hear children read and specifically and directly guide their reading forward using books that are on their instructional level. Zooming for 10-20 minutes per group can really help each learner grow.
