Saturday, February 6, 2010

About Reader's Workshop: Quick thoughts on Book Talking

I was delighted this morning to read Reading Countess' blog post on the Power of Book Talking Books. She's discovered that when the students put together a list of 100 top books, many of them had been talked about in some way - either through book clubs, read alouds or book talks by the teacher or students. She writes:

"Part of our every day workshop is also book talking. I have found this to be an integral piece of the reading puzzle. My students trust me, and more importantly, they trust one another for recommended reading material."

When the class I had last year started book talking, I was amazed at the way books gained in popularity. When the students wrote their first book letters yesterday, one of the questions they could choose to answer was why did they choose that book. Three of the students wrote that they read a book because another student had recommended it to them, while five credited me with pointing them in the direction of a book (we've only had 2 student book talks so far this year, so I'm sure the balance will soon swing the other direction.)

When I started teaching Reader's Workshop I was all about the reading. If I told anyone else about it, I was telling them how important the reading was. What I didn't realise then, but I'm beginning to realise now is that the talk is just as important.

Read more about Reader's Workshop here

2 comments:

Cathy said...

Enjoyed your post about the importance of talk. I know I like to read a good book, but I LOVE to find a friend that has read it also. Chatting about the book often pushes me to think about my reading in a new way. I am a social reader, and I think a lot of our kids are too. Thanks for speaking to the importance of talk in our classrooms.

A Reader's Community said...

I agree with you when it comes to chatting about books - I love it when a student reads a book that I've read and we can talk about it. Makes me all excited to share what I think and hear what they think.

A Reader's Community

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Queensland, Australia
A Reader's Community is a place to find ideas, information, resources and recommendations about Reader's Workshop.

This Blog has five main types of posts.

About Reader's Workshop - information about Reader's Workshop in my classroom and how it works

Reader's Workshop Tools - resources you can access and use to help you with reader's workshop

Book talks - Book recommendations of two or three books centred around a particular theme

Book letters - in-depth reviews of one particular book

Reader's Workshop Links - Short links lists to help you find more information
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