Allison Catto's September Blog Post 1: The Pleasure Principle

          “The Pleasure Principle” by Nancie Atwell has certainly opened my mind to revisiting the way I think about reading workshop.  Often times, teachers get caught up with the standards and state testing and forget to just let kids read.  With reading workshop, we sometimes feel like we aren’t teaching or our students aren’t being held accountable on paper so what we are doing is ineffective.  This is where we must change how we think.  Giving students a chunk of time (30 minutes) every day to get comfortable and read good books directly correlates to high levels of performance on standardized tests.  Teachers must provide a mini-lesson before students read independently.  The mini-lessons will guide students as they move into the total silence of independent reading.  During reading workshop, “children are encouraged to skim, skip, and look ahead.”  Students are taught to put down books they aren’t enjoying and revisit books they love. 

          During reading workshop, teachers help students choose books that are just right for them and carve out their identities for themselves as readers.  Once we get students “hooked” on good books, they won’t need “rewards” to keep them interested in reading, instead the reward will be intrinsic.  I like the quote from Atwell, “The passions aroused by stories and characters are the prize.”  I personally must change my mindset about what I must do during reading workshop.  The best delivery system for reading comprehension is reading!  Students should not be given tests, worksheets, book reports, journal entries, or any other meaningless written work. Instead, students will participate in “book talks, read alouds, conversations, time, silence, comfort, simple systems of record-keeping, and a classroom library that gets bigger and better every year, because teachers understand that volume of reading and enthusiasm for reading are key and everything else is either a frill or a boondoggle.”  I want my students to get lost in their “reading zone.”  In order to do this, I must demonstrate a love of reading, share that love, and give my students the opportunity to “leave our classroom behind and live vicariously in their books.”