Reading Workshop: Video Segment

Ms. Pursley's reading workshops give students opportunities to make choices and apply their skills and knowledge to the text they are reading.

• What does Ms. Pursley mean by the "just-right book" for a student? How does she determine it? How does she help students find their own "just-right book"?
• Ms. Pursley limits the amount of teacher talk during the reading workshop by carrying out short, focused mini-lessons. What is her focus in the lesson using onsets and rimes with a more emergent reader? How does she help the student understand how to apply the skill to her current reading book?

Shared Reading: Video Segment

Ms. Pursley's shared-reading lesson with the entire class is different from other shared-reading lessons in the Teaching Reading library. She uses a different medium -- the newspaper -- and mines "teachable moments" that arise during the lesson to discuss skills and concepts.

• How does Ms. Pursley integrate work on vocabulary and comprehension into her lesson? What new terms does she introduce to students?
• Ms. Pursley comments, "If children know why they are learning something and value it, they will be better able to learn it." What does Ms. Pursley do in this lesson that demonstrates this view?
• How does Ms. Pursley take advantage of a "teachable moment" that arises in this segment? How does Ms. Pursley segue into a lesson for the entire group?

Readers' Theater: Video Segment

Ms. Pursley believes that Readers' Theater promotes oral reading skills like fluency and intonation and enhances social skills and decision-making abilities.

• How do students prepare for reading Arthur's New Puppy to the class? Why does Ms. Pursley think having an audience is important?
• Research suggests that re-readings build fluency. How does Readers' Theater develop fluency? What other skills does it develop?
• What does this segment suggest about mixed-ability groupings? Why does Ms. Pursley think the lower-leveled reader improved significantly?
• Where else does Ms. Pursley use heterogeneous groupings? How do these heterogeneous groupings benefit learners?

Writing Workshop: Video Segment

Ms. Pursley's writing workshop -- with its routines and emphasis on choice and response -- is a key component of her first-grade classroom.

• What are the stages of writing Ms. Pursley considers appropriate for first-grade writers?
• What role does presenting written work to the class have at the revision stage? How is it different at the publication stage?
• What guides Ms. Pursley's timing in presenting the writing checklist to students? What does she think is an appropriate emphasis in editing at the first-grade level?

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