Reading Workshop 2.0
Author: Frank Serafini
Published March 26th, 2015 by Heinemann Educational Books
Goodreads Summary: As reading teachers, how do we deal with the massive shifts that digital literacy is creating? We can’t abandon what we know works to keep up with the latest online-literacy fads. Yet, we need to prepare readers for a world of digital content. Reading Workshop 2.0 gives us teaching that puts reading for meaning first while also balancing the need for kids to become sophisticated users of books as well as online reading resources.
“This book,” writes Frank Serafini, “is designed to help teachers organize their reading workshops in order to take advantage of the latest technologies.” With his guidance, you’ll bring more digital reading into your teaching without sacrificing sound instructional principles or practices. Reading print shares four essential processes with digital reading: accessing and navigating; archiving and sharing; commenting and discussing; and interpreting and analyzing.
Frank introduces important, well-established digitally based resources that further these processes, while his lesson ideas transfer learning from classroom to real-world digital reading.
“If it doesn’t help children develop as readers,” writes Frank Serafini, “it doesn’t matter how shiny the new object is.” With Reading Workshop 2.0, you’ll help students with print while also helping them use online resources and technologies as they are intended-to make sense of texts more deeply, effectively, and efficiently.
My Thoughts: When I read a professional text, I hope that it is a perfect mix of theory and practical practices so that not only do I understand the WHY and WHAT but also the HOW. This book does just that. Part One of the text deals with the foundations of reading workshop. Dr. Serafini shares a brief overview of what can be found in his initial book about workshop, The Reading Workshop: Creating Space for Readers, including the “Ten Theoretical Principles About Teaching Reading,” “Pedagogical Strands” of reading workshop, and “Instructional Components of the Reading Workshop.” As I haven’t read any other texts by Dr. Serafini, I loved this overview (this will be fixed soon though as I have now bought 4 others books by him!). Throughout this part of the book, I found myself thinking, “YES!” and wanting to go share what I was reading with every teacher I knew. He writes about much of what I stand for when it comes to teaching reading.
Part two jumps into the 2.0 part of the text. He breaks up this part into four processes that should be added to reading workshop to move it into the digital age: “Accessing and Navigating Digital Texts,” “Archiving and Sharing Our Reading Lives,” “Commenting on and Discussing Digital Texts,” and “Interpreting and Analyzing Digital Texts.” He stresses throughout that this isn’t instead of reading workshop, this is along with. Students must get familiar with digital texts, so our workshops really need to move to 2.0. Within each chapter on a process, he gives information, resources, and explicit lessons for teaching the process. So informative and practical.
Loved this expansion on the traditional reading workshop. Filled with theory, resources, and practical practices, this PD text was very beneficial!
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Dr. Serafini has “Resources for Supporting Readers in the Digital Age” on his website that he will update regularly.
We Flagged: There is so much highlighting and underlining in my text that it is hard to choose what to share, but one of my favorite foundational things that was said was:
“Time is the second dimension of the opportunity strand–time to read, time to share ideas, time to wonder, and time to explore new texts. We cannot master something we don’t dedicate our time to, it’s that simple.”
Dr. Serafini joined #rwworkshop (reading/writing workshop) chat on August 5th, and really gave us great insight into his text and moving reading workshop to the digital era. Check out the archive at the #rwworkshop wiki http://rwworkshop.wikispaces.com.
Read This If You Loved: Other texts by Dr. Frank Serafini, Nancie Atwell texts, The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, Book Love by Penny Kittle,
I will need to share this book with the English teachers I coach! Thanks for reviewing it!