Implementing a Workshop Approach to Reading
Dr. Frank Serafini
Academic Exchange Quarterly – Summer 2005
Abstract
Implementing a workshop approach to reading
instruction presents many challenges for classroom teachers. These challenges
come from external pressures such as high stakes testing, administrative edicts
and peer pressures. They are also generated internally from lack of experience
with instructional resources, variety of student experiences, and narrow
definitions of reading and reading instruction.
Introduction
In the neo-conservative backlash we currently find
ourselves in as literacy educators (Taxel, 1999), instructional approaches that include children's
literature in the elementary reading curriculum, commonly referred to as
literature based instruction (Raphael & Au, 1997) or reading workshops (Atwell, 1998), are being challenged by current federal
legislation and its support for scientifically-based commercial reading
programs (e.g. Open Court, Direct Instruction). Teachers implementing workshop
approaches, utilizing children’s literature as a primary resource for instruction,
are coming under fire to provide scientifically-based reading research to
support their instructional choices. (Patel Stevens, 2003; Yatvin, Weaver, & Garan,
2003).
Proponents
of code-based approaches to reading instruction have suggested that
literature-based approaches push the teaching of phonics and reading skills to
the periphery of the reading program (Foorman, Francis, & Fletcher, 1998). In addition, the inclusion of systematic, explicit
phonics instruction in a reading workshop or balanced approach has been touted
as the answer to the current “literacy crisis” in America’s schools (Meyer, 2002).
Considering
the political nature of the current debates in reading instruction and what
constitutes scientifically-based research (Allington, 2002; Garan, 2002), literacy educators need to be concerned with more
than the quality and breadth of the research used to support instructional
decisions and programs. Literacy educators and classroom teachers also need to
be concerned with the characteristics and abilities of the readers developed and
supported in schools, the quality of the conversations among children and
teachers, and the effects of standards and standardized assessments on the
reading curriculum (Eisner, 2001; Noddings, 1997).
With
a shift in the political climate aligning to more conservative values and the
rapid expansion of high stakes testing (McGill-Franzen, 2000), the role of children's literature may
be reduced to an instructional device designed to teach children how to decode
more effectively and identify the main idea of a reading selection in order to
secure higher scores on standardized tests. Responding to political pressures,
elementary teachers are being forced to adopt reading instructional practices
and commercial reading programs that focus on decoding and comprehension
strategies designed to raise standardized test scores, rather than utilizing
children’s literature in a workshop approach to reading instruction (Putney, Green, Dixon, & Kelly, 1999).
A
workshop approach to reading instruction generally includes, but is not limited
to, the reading and discussion of authentic children’s literature, the teaching
of comprehension strategies in the context of reading, opportunities for
students to read and explore texts independently, small group literature studies,
shared and guided reading instruction, and instruction for decoding text (Serafini, 2001). Several of these components, in
particular reading aloud and time for independent reading, were not directly
supported by the findings of the National Reading Panel (Report of the national reading panel:
Teaching children to read,
1999), to the extent that instruction in decoding and
comprehension strategies was supported. Because of this, many teachers have been
challenged to provide evidence in order to defend a workshop approach to
reading instruction by school administrators, and state and federal
authorities.
In
this article, I will discuss various challenges to implementing what I have
described as a workshop approach to reading instruction. These challenges have
been offered by in-service and pre-service teachers during literacy workshops,
college courses, and interviews conducted in association with the implementation
of Nevada Reading Excellence Act. The teachers interviewed were taking classes
as part of the federally funded Reading Excellence Act. In Nevada, the Nevada
Reading Excellence Act paid for the course work and training of two literacy
specialists for each school that qualified for funding under the requirements
of the grant. These literacy specialists in training were supported through the
grant to take classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in literacy
education, assessment, and instruction.
In addition to describing the various challenges
offered by classroom teachers, I will describe some possible resolutions to
these challenges in the hope that teachers will find ways to implement a
workshop approach to reading instruction during these troubling times. The
various challenges offered by classroom teachers can be loosely categorized as
external challenges, those that are imposed from outside the classroom, and
internal challenges, those challenges involved with teachers’ professional
development and instructional decisions.
External Challenges
Many of the challenges of
implementing a workshop approach to reading instruction come from entities
outside the classroom. Challenges levied through political mandates and testing
programs, and by administrators, parents and peers, were all indicated by
teachers during interviews and professional development workshops. Approximately,
eighty teachers, most of them with at least five years experience as a
classroom teacher, were interviewed and surveyed through their course work in
becoming a literacy specialist. In response to these challenges, some teachers
gave up their workshop approaches and followed the lessons included in mandated
commercial programs, while others closed their doors and tried to hide what
they were doing from their administrators. Other teachers indicated they were
trying to educate their administration about the importance of workshop
approaches, or lobbying their local district officials for more choice in their
instructional approaches by providing evidence of the effectiveness of
components of a reading workshop. In spite of these efforts, teachers seem to
have little voice in the decision making process concerning the reading
instructional approaches they will be allowed to implement.
Undoubtedly, the most common challenge offered by
teachers implementing a workshop approach to reading instruction in their
classrooms is the pressure associated with raising students’ scores on high
stakes, standardized testing. Teachers frequently ask, “How do we prepare
students for standardized tests if we don’t teach to the test during reading
instruction?” Many teachers perceived a disconnect between instruction for test
preparation and instruction for reading in the world.
While
many of the skills and strategies necessary for readers to be successful on
standardized tests are also necessary for readers to be successful in a
workshop approach, other reading skills, for example, finding a main idea or
sequencing elements of the story plot, may not be emphasized in a workshop
approach. Because of these distinct contexts, it may be more effective to
separate the teaching of skills for standardized tests from the instruction in
the reading workshop. In other words, rather than teaching reading as a single
cognitive operation that can be applied universally to poetry, newspapers,
novels and test passages alike, teaching standardized test passages as a
separate genre, in the same manner we would teach poetry different from
expository texts may help readers be more successful in both contexts (Santman, 2002).
It
is important that teachers call students’ attention to the structures and
elements of this unique “standardized test genre”. Deconstructing the elements
and structures of standardized tests require teachers to make elements of these
tests explicit so students can attend to these elements and be successful on
these standardized measures (McCabe, 2003).
In today’s public schools, administrators are under
tremendous pressures to raise test scores and produce evidence that their
school is not leaving any children “behind.” Some administrators do not support
workshop approaches to reading instruction, preferring instead the
implementation of commercial reading programs and scripted lesson formats in
order to insure uniformity and control over instructional practices (Ohanian, 1999). In contrast, in a workshop approach all literacy
lessons are not scripted out in advance, nor are they contained in a teacher’s
manual. This lack of control over the content and sequence of literacy lessons
in a workshop approach concerns many administrators that feel having all
children working on the same thing at the same time will ensure quality
instructional experiences (Eisner, 2001).
In
light of the growing implementation of scripted instructional programs, it is
important to educate administrators about workshop approaches that support
developing readers. Administrators have the right to know why teachers are
using particular instructional approaches; however, the responsibility falls on
teachers to defend their instructional practices and provide a rationale and
evidence of the effectiveness of their instructional decisions. Unfortunately,
if the only way to defend reading instructional practices is through narrowly
defined reading research or increases in standardized test scores, teachers may
have a difficult time defending their instructional decisions.
Many
administrators have not read the same professional materials that literacy
educators have, nor have many of them taken classes or attended workshops and
conferences that focus on reading instruction. Because of this, reading
teachers need to be able to articulate the theoretical foundations for their
instructional practices, explain how they address any mandated curriculum
standards and testing requirements, and demonstrate why they organize their
instructional approaches the way they do.
Parents want to see classroom environments and
instructional approaches that remind them of the types of experiences they
remember when they were in school (Newkirk, 1991). Unless teachers learn to demonstrate and
adequately explain why a workshop approach is superior to the instruction these
parents experienced, parents will not support how teachers are teaching.
Providing parents with a series of opportunities to help them understand
contemporary instructional approaches, through parent nights and teacher
conferences, help parents see the value in what teachers are doing. Continuous
reporting of student progress and well-planned parent interactions can help
parents see the value in a workshop approach. To be successful in doing this,
teachers need to talk to parents in jargon-free language and model for them
what their children will experience throughout the school day. Connecting what
parents experienced with what teachers are doing in reading workshops,
explaining the differences and helping parents understand the instruction their
children will experience, will help teachers garner parental support.
Internal Challenges
Some of the biggest challenges offered by teachers
to implementing a reading workshop approach are the lack of professional
development opportunities that address the use of children’s literature,
inadequate resources and instructional materials, a limited knowledge base in
reading processes and literary theory, and the wide variety of experiences and
abilities that students bring to school. As teachers work to implement a
reading workshop, they need professional support to address the continuing
challenges of using literature and developing instructional experiences in the
workshop. With so much money in school districts going to training in
particular commercial reading programs or for purchasing basal anthologies and
consumable worksheets, there is little left over for the purchase of children’s
literature or professional development opportunities. Teachers are being
trained how to follow a commercial program, but they are not being given time and
support for learning about the processes of reading, children’s literature and
how to support the readers in their classrooms.
Lack
of Experience with Children’s Literature
Because course work in children’s literature is not
a requirement in many states and teacher education programs, a significant
number of teachers attempting a workshop approach to reading instruction don’t
have enough knowledge of children’s literature to know what is available or how
to use the resources they are given (Hoewisch, 2000). Teachers using literature as their primary
resource for teaching reading need to keep abreast of current publications in
the children’s literature market. For many teachers, a refresher course in
children’s literature would enhance their ability to teach in a workshop
approach. In addition, spending some Saturday mornings in a local children’s
book store reading new books and revisiting classic texts would be beneficial.
In
addition to experience with children’s literature, teachers need to read and
discuss professional articles and publications that focus on literary theory,
children’s literature and reading workshop. Opportunities for teachers to
discuss literary devices, analyze the elements in the art and design of picture
books, investigate the interplay between illustrations and text and begin to
understand how readers construct meaning in transaction with the literature
they read will support their instructional decisions in a reading workshop (McGee & Tompkins, 1995).
Whether teachers acknowledge it or not, their
beliefs and theoretical understandings about reading and learning to read will
affect how they teach (Dias, 1992). Until teachers are able to put aside outdated
theoretical models and understandings of the reading process, the changes made
in instructional practices will be largely cosmetic. Just because teachers are
utilizing children’s literature in their reading instruction does not mean they
have changed their theoretical understandings.
The
basalization of literature (Shannon & Goodman, 1994) refers to the process of treating children’s
literature in the same manner as a scripted lesson from the teacher’s manual.
Requiring chapter quizzes, asking students literal recall questions and
searching for a single, main idea in every book are based on a modernist theory
of reading and meaning (Elkind, 1997). Until there is a parallel shift in theoretical
understandings that accompanies the changes in instructional resources, there
will be little changes in how reading is defined, taught and assessed (Serafini, 2003).
Teachers often lament about the wide variety of
experiences, abilities and interests that their students bring to their
classrooms, However, this concern is one of the primary reasons for
implementing a workshop approach to reading instruction. A workshop approach is
more responsive to the needs of individual children, disregarding the
“one-size-fits-all” approach of many commercial materials. In workshop
approaches, the teacher is seen as a decision maker, conducting lessons and
creating learning experiences based on the needs of the readers in their class.
Having all students working in the same book at the same time is about control
and comfort, not effective teaching. Workshop approaches allow readers to
choose from a wide variety of texts. Teachers can address individual needs
based on readers’ abilities, experiences and needs.
Research has suggested that addressing
students’ individual needs is an important aspect of effective reading
instruction (Fielding & Pearson, 1994). Although this may challenge teachers’
traditional notions of reading instruction, forcing them to work in guided
reading groups and individually with readers, the research is overwhelmingly in
favor of individualizing instruction to meet the needs of all learners (Allington & Walmsley, 1995). Teachers need to put aside
instructional practices that have been shown to be ineffective.
Concluding Remarks
The
National Reading Panel (Report of the national reading panel: Teaching
children to read, 1999) makes specific recommendations about decoding and
comprehension instruction, but does not state that a workshop approach to
reading instruction is ineffective or should be abandoned. While particular
educators and administrators have tried to interpret the report as mandating
scripted lessons and programs, members of the panel have been adamant in their
position that they did not endorse particular programs in the report (Garan, 2002).
The document stresses the importance of
decoding and explicit instruction in word level strategies, but does not
suggest that this should entail the entire reading program. A workshop approach
does not suggest the teacher sit back and let students learn to read by simply
spending time with quality literature. Instructional decisions are made by
teachers to address the needs of the students in their classrooms, rather than
coming from a commercial program. In the hands of a quality teacher, basals and
instructional materials become resources to use, rather than a series of
lessons to be read aloud.
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