About Reader's Workshop: The First Day

This Wednesday is the first day of school for most schools here in Queensland. Once I've set out the expectations for the year, talked about routines and organised their books (argh!) it'll be time to begin our first Reader's Workshop for the year. The question for me was what was I going to do? I'm in the fortunate position that I'm getting a good proportion of students that I had last year, so I don't have to spend a huge amount of time explaining the workshop, and of course I want them to get in and read as soon as possible.

After reading Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer, I think I've worked out what I'm going to do. First we're going to start with a fairly informal discussion - who read something good on the holidays? Is there anything you're looking forward to reading this year? I'm hoping this will help them relax back into old routines, or relax students who haven't had me as a teacher before. I'll give a quick explanation of Reader's Workshop, and my expectations for the year, but we've got a week and a half to get it all working well.

Then the students will complete a short Reader's Survey, adapted from the one in The Book Whisperer. I'm hoping this will help me see any changes in the students I already know, while getting to know the new students. Once they finish that (and I'll have to help one student with the writing part) they'll be free to read anything they want from the classroom library. I'm hoping that I'll be finished with the helping by then and this will be the first conferences I have - tell me what you are thinking about reading?

As the next week and a half progresses we'll talk about choosing books, how to do book talks, how to use our Reader's Notebooks, book letters and other routines of Reader's Workshop. We'll begin opening up conversation about books and begin creating a community of readers. I can't wait!

What do you do on the first day of school? Let me know in the comments!

Read more about Reader's Workshop here
See pictures of my classroom being set up here and here