Reading Workshop in Kindergarten Transcript
Tch
Teaching Channel
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Student: "I am under the yellow umbrella."
CARD:
Reading Workshop
in Kindergarten
Emma Coufal: We're going to start our readers workshop by playing a game that you guys know really well called pop it, and we're going to pop it with a book we read today.
Emma Coufal: My name is Emma Coufal. I teach Kindergarten at Think College Now Elementary School in Oakland California.
Lower Third:
Emma Coufal
Kindergarten Teacher
Think College Now Elementary, Oakland, CA
Emma Coufal: Today's lesson was a reader's workshop lesson on using pictures to figure out an unknown word.
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Emma Coufal: So I'm going to point to a picture and you guys are going to help me by popping it. So let's start with a picture of a jar. J-J.
Students: J-J-J
Emma Coufal: Oh, very good. Let's try "car".
Students: C-C-C
Emma Coufal: Awesome job.
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Emma Coufal: We like to bookend the lessons with some sort of a phonics or phonemic awareness game, and so we play pop it so they could just play the sound, the first sound that they heard when we talked about a picture, and it was just a little warm up for them and also to know that they were going to be using those pictures and first sounds and what we were going to be doing.
Emma Coufal: Let's pop it at "chair".
Students: Ch-ch-ch.
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Emma Coufal: Most of my students are language learners. I think it's a lot about valuing what they bring in and where they come from. So I have students that come in, you know, in their home they speak Spanish or Cambodian or Man or Mien, like so many wonderful languages, and really valuing and telling the parents that we value that too. That if you're talking with your child and reading with your child, it doesn't really matter what language you're doing that in. They're developing literacy and language skills, and then my job is to transfer those skills to English.
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Emma Coufal: So we've been practicing being super readers. We really worked on that. You guys are all super readers, and we thought about what superhero we are when we're a super reader, so can you quietly whisper to your partner, "What super hero do you want to be?"
Emma Coufal: And then we talked about how we've been using our superpowers to become super readers and that today they were going to learn a new superpower.
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Emma Coufal: Just like superheroes, if we come to a word that's tricky or a book is hard, we can activate all of our powers. We might need one more power. Okay, are you ready to learn what that power is?
Students: Yes.
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Emma Coufal: All right. The power that we are going to learn today, it's called picture power. Can we say, "picture power"?
Students: Picture power.
Emma Coufal: And I'm going to put picture power up on the chart.
CARD:
Common Core State Standard
Phonics and Word Recognition
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Emma Coufal: The learning goal would be that the children were able to use a picture to figure out an unknown word--
CARD:
Common Core State Standard
Engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding
-- or that they would be able to use the picture in a first sound to determine an unknown word in their book.
Emma Coufal: In the garden.
CARD:
Readers Workshop
Minilesson
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Emma Coufal: We began by doing a shared reading with a book called In the garden, and we talked a little bit about the title and what we might read about in the book, and then we opened it up and we began reading the sight words together until we came to an unknown word, which was actually covered up.
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Emma Coufal: I covered up the picture right here too. Oh my gosh, some friends are thinking that it's butterfly, and maybe that's because I didn't cover up the picture well enough. You were already using your picture power. When I turn it over, here's a butterfly there, so my guess-- my guess is that that word's going to be butterfly. I'm going to look and check to see if I'm right.
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Look at that. It starts with the "b-b-b". So let's read it together.
Students: Look at the butterfly.
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Emma Coufal: With Common Core, children should be reading and analyzing text from the time they enter school. That means that they have an interest in books; that they're able to, like, see what is in a book; they can read certain levels of text and understand pictures, understand concepts and have conversations about them.
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Emma Coufal: What is that letter? That's a "c"
Students: "C".
Emma Coufal: What sound does the 'c' make?
Students: "Ch"
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Emma Coufal: Oh, just like caterpillar. I think we've figured it out with our picture power. Let's read it together.
Students: Look at the caterpillar.
Emma Coufal: After that mini lesson they go into their independent reading time.
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Emma Coufal: So we're going to go back-to-back with our partner when I say so, and we're going to use all our superpowers to read the books in our book basket. So I want everyone to stand up, find your book baskets, and let's find our spots.
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Emma Coufal: The majority of workshop is them being in reading time, where they're reading independently and then they're reading as a partnership. It takes a lot of practice for students to be able to manage themselves independently--
CARD:
Readers Workshop
Independent Reading
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Emma Coufal: We introduce the partnership method of 'Here's your partner. This is where you and your partner go." We talked about independent reading or private reading means you're going to turn back to back, and this is when you're working on learning and reading and, you know, growing your reading muscles.
Emma Coufal: What do you thin that might be?
CARD:
Readers Workshop
Conferring
Student: Flags.
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Emma Coufal: Flags. Good job with your picture power.
Emma Coufal: So when I walk around I confer with students, I'm taking notes to see if they have started to understand that learning goal.
Student: First of July.
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Emma Coufal: High five. What great reading you're doing. So, Brian, I think that what we're going to do is we're going to try and do a level B and see if you can do that.
Emma Coufal: However readers workshop it's very spiraling. So a lot of it we continue to do everyday, everyday.
Emma Coufal: Can you show me your pointing power?
Student: I...
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Emma Coufal: Remember that word is a sight word? Do you remember what word that is? Do you remember what word that is?
Student: Like.
Emma Coufal: Like. "I like". Oh, very good.
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Emma Coufal: I'm acknowledging that not all students are going to hit a learning target at the end of each lesson. Some of them will; some of them are going to hear it immediately you use it in their reading, and some of them might use it two months from now, and some of them might have already been using that. For me, it's going around assessing where each student is at their own level and then I can make targeted groups from there as well.
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Emma Coufal: So where about to change to partner reading, and before we turn with our partner I want to tell you that you might need to help your partner with the first sound of their picture. You can help them pop the word just like we did in the beginning.
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Emma Coufal: When you are wording with your partner you want to be side to side, and when you're sitting side to side that's how you're helping, and how can you be a good partner? We've looked a lot at that, of what does it mean to be a good partner.
CARD:
Readers Workshop
Partnerwork
Students: "Isn't Halloween fun? Then 'Woo' went in the wind."
Students: "We are here. We are here."
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Emma Coufal: Oh, very good, now can you guys go on a snap word hunt, a sight word hunt and find the word "we"? Oh, you found it.
Emma Coufal: Anything to help their partner notice those words and notice the pictures and get better at reading the books I think my role in that is to remind them, "Oh, you have this strategy. Why don't you try that strategy?" And then they do it.
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Emma Coufal: Victoria, can you show her where you saw it? That's really being a good partner, Victoria. Can you guys try and find more sight words that way?
Student: "Who is under the yellow umbrella?"
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Emma Coufal: They are talking about books with their partners. They are decoding words together. They're using phonics. They're using picture to try and understand words. They're understanding the relationship between text and pictures and between text and their world. And also knowing that they're five years old or their six years old and they want to have fun and they want to be silly and they, you know, want a little witch finger on their hand to point to things, that's-- I mean that's such a little thing but it makes
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them feel so powerful to have that little pointer on their hand to go through. Then we came back to the carpet for a share.
Emma Coufal: Now boys and girls, we're going to put our book baskets away quietly and carefully and come back to our spots.
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Emma Coufal: We're constantly changing and evolving our structures and our teaching styles and our methods and our systems to work with our kids.
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Emma Coufal: Different developmentally appropriate techniques, how can we do all this to lift up our students and continue learning that.
CARD:
Readers Workshop
Closing
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Emma Coufal: I saw so many readers helping each other, especially with their partners. So if you were being a really helpful partner like Batman and Robin, give yourself a pat on the back for being a really great partner.
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Emma Coufal: It's really starting out from day one, reading is something we do for enjoyment. It's something we learned. Why do we want to learn? How can we learn? I just think there's a lot of things we do to make it fun and to make it developmentally appropriate so that they can enjoy this and they can be pumped about going through school and being scholars and being part of this educational world.
Tch
Teaching Channel
69 Comments
Lauren Pierce Jan 15, 2024 11:44am
The teacher begins with a fun game as a warm -up that also worked on phonemic awareness. She takes notes and monitors progress on their learning goal. She may change the students reading level. She assesses where students are and creates targeted groups from the data she collects. Students do independent reading and partner reading. Partner reading allows students to help each other. I really like how she calls her students “super readers” and she teaches them their “reading powers”
LaBresha Small Dec 18, 2023 9:13pm
Tamika West Oct 23, 2023 2:24pm
The routines and expectations Ms. Coufal have in place in order for the workshop to run smoothly is she gives instructions right before the kids move or talk.
Ms. Coufal use her conference time with students bt meeting and assessing their readiing and skill growth.
The workshop model support all students, especially English Language Learners by making it relatablen(superpower ablities) and using pictures. Partnering up also helps.
DeAnna Granger Sep 9, 2023 4:10pm
Joann Miller Jun 27, 2023 10:39am
I love the teacher ideas to making these kids think. Using pointers was excellent idea to get students to point to each words. I would like to use that idea with my students. She did a great job pairing kids, so they could work together and help each other out.