Fifteen 6-year-olds enter the classroom, pick up book baskets, and find places to read. An industrious hum spreads through the room. Reading and writing workshop has begun. The books the children are reading are familiar to them, neither too hard nor too easy. Rereading allows them to practice the skills and strategies they have been learning, while developing fluency and comprehension. Alex always reads his favorites first. Deborah starts with the book on top and works her way to the bottom of the basket.
Soon I ask the children to find their buddy, and they sit in pairs reading to each other. Listening in, you can hear Anne say to Manuel, "You know this word; it's like cat, but it's got a p." Manuel replies, "Oh, yeah. Cap." He rereads the sentence and goes on.
Meanwhile I work individually with Michael. He rereads a book or two from his basket, and I make notes on his progress. Then I introduce a book about insects, a favorite topic of his. It challenges him to apply what he knows about reading strategies and how words work. After reading it, he adds it to his basket.
Next I call the children to the circle to read our daily message—an overview of our day written on the chalkboard. This is an opportunity to practice reading skills and strategies and is also the time for explicit instruction in phonics. The students and I read through the message silently and then aloud. As we read, we come to words that have been masked or that have letters omitted, and together we work out what these words and letters should be.
Discussing the strategies we used helps the children understand the processes underlying their reading. I select a few words—out and how—for special attention. We discuss how letters work together to make sounds, how different letters can make the same sound, and how knowing these letter-sound patterns in one word can help us write others. As I write how on the chalkboard, the children do the same on individual white boards. Underneath how I write now. We notice that parts of the words look and sound alike, and we use this information to write wow, cow, and pow. As the children work, I note who writes the new words easily and who will need extra help.
Connections to the phonics lesson will appear throughout the day. During a shared reading of the big book Noisy Nora (Wells 1984), I ask the children to look for words with the letters o-w or o-u. When the word down appears, many hands shoot up. At the word shouted, Aisha, who is learning English as a second language, notices the o-u.
After Noisy Nora the children begin a reading response; they write about a sister or brother. As they work, I gather a small group for a guided reading lesson, and we apply today's phonics lesson to help us read The Wide-Mouthed Frog (Butler 1989). When I hand Veronica her book, she immediately notices that the letters o-u are in the title.
Next, I work with Jane, who reads fluently until she comes to the word council. I prompt with, "Is there anything we learned today that could help you read that word?" Jane repeats the word in chunks: "Ou, cou, coun, council. Council?" We discuss the word's meaning; then she rereads the sentence and goes on.
During our next activity, journal writing, I again help the children connect their new learning to their work. Jacqueline makes my job easy by asking, "Is outside o-u or o-w?" I jot down her question in my assessment notebook. Reading over Jane's shoulder I notice that in her story about the Statue of Liberty, both crown and crowded are spelled correctly. We close the workshop by listening to the next chapter of The School Mouse (King-Smith 1997). Veronica again notices that there is an o-u word in the title.
The next day during buddy reading, Hassan and Stephanie fly to my desk to inform me that Hassan has found an o-w word in his book: owl. Moments later another pair tells me they have found hour. I give the children sticky notes so they can write down o-u or o-w words they find as they read. They bring the notes to circle, and we write their words on a chart. This unexpected outgrowth of yesterday's lesson tells me that the children have made this knowledge their own.
