Students and teachers make choices within these areas during Communications Workshop. Students work on the personal literacy goals that they developed for themselves during goal-setting conferences with the teachers. The structure of the workshop is described below. We begin the workshop with a read-aloud of a picture book or a continuing chapter book. Students have input into the book selection.
Quiet reading is next.
After the silent quiet reading time, the reading segment of Communications Workshop continues with a variety of activities. Some students enjoy partner reading. Friends pair up to share books they have been reading. Sharing includes showing pictures, inventing a story to go with the pictures, talking about the book, or reading the book aloud. Some students listen to tape-recordings of books at the listening center at this time.