I wish that I had a Reader's Workshop. I do, in some respects, with my homeroom kids. But I wish I was able to implement it with the remainder of my kids. Why? Because I think it is a fantastic way to teach reading. In the workshop you provide mini-lessons geared towards the needs of your kiddos, from which you are able to individually monitor as needed. You can also use reader's notebooks to track the thinking of your students as they employ the strategies you've taught.
My reading instruction is currently heavily dependent on writing. Why? Writing is my main method of assessing their comprehension. In some ways this is great. It gets them actively engaged in processing the information they are reading. Additionally I find that writing is a way that forces them to fully communicate their thinking, something they might not otherwise do.
The main pitfall is that it is time consuming. Using writing also requires that kids are able to write in some capacity. I've fallen into this mode where I have kids writing a bit too much, instead of using other methods of assessing their comprehension. Right now we are taking information from three different colonies and describing them as though we were there. They need to use information from their FQR (fact/question/response) sheet to help them in their writing. But instead of going deeper with the reading, we get bogged down in the writing. Thankfully I have reading going home on a near nightly basis.
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