Understanding the Reader-Writer Workshop Teaching Method

What is Reader-Writer Workshop?

Readers-writers workshop is a method of instruction that often requires a paradigm shift, a shift from the teacher making all the choices and telling students what to learn within a text, to students making choices, and through practice and application of skills-based lessons, learning as they read and write.

The routines and structures of reading and writing workshop are kept simple and predictable so that the teacher can focus on the complex work of teaching in a responsive manner to accelerate achievement for all learners.

Creating an Open Space for Learning:

Creating open spaces in a classroom equates to “workshop.” Open spaces means teachers let go of control, remove themselves from center stage as the holders of the knowledge, and invite students into a space of curiosity and discovery. It’s a space where students thrive in a community of trust and sharing, where they talk about their identities and experiences as readers and writers, where they play with language and take risks as they explore what it means to develop their comprehension and analysis skills — and their craft as writers.

For  readers, opening the space for students to choose the books they read. By doing so, students are met where they are in terms of their interests and abilities. The teacher becomes a coach, teaching skills specific to the needs of each learner. This requires time. Teachers must reserve time for students to read when they are in class, and they must discuss with students about what they are reading — and how they are reading it. This is reading instruction in a workshop model. Teach the reader, not the book. Readers must predict, visualize, infer, comprehend, analyze, and evaluate. These are all skills that are modelled and taught in readers’ workshop.

Why Workshop?

The Reading and Writing Project’s approach to instruction recognizes that “one size fits all” does not match the realities of the classrooms and schools in which they work. When you walk into a workshop classroom at any given moment, you’ll see instruction that is designed to:

• help teachers address each child’s individual learning,

• explicitly teach strategies students will use not only the day they are taught, but whenever they need them,

• support small-group work and conferring, with multiple opportunities for personalizing instruction,

• tap into the power of a learning community as a way to bring all learners along,

• build choice and assessment-based learning into the very design of the curriculum,

• help students work with engagement so that teachers are able to coach individuals and lead small groups.