Kaylee Foster's September Blog Post 2- "The Pleasure Principle"

Nancy Atwell voiced great words in the article “The Pleasure Principle”. The visual that I had for reading workshop has been completely altered after reading this article. Often I feel as if teachers are pushed to their limits with everything that has to get done that letting children read what they want gets pushed to the back burner. This is no excuse at all! It is the teacher’s job and should be their calling to provide students with ample opportunities to let children dive into a book that they love. I love the quote “when teachers embrace our role as literate grown-ups who help children seek and find delight and enlargement of life in books, they have a good chance of growing into adults who enjoy and love reading.” When we provide this for our students we are setting them up for success.

Reading workshop shouldn’t be something as complicated as we are making it. An effective reading workshop will begin with a mini lesson on a specific skill and follow up with giving students the chance to take charge in what they want to read and complete silence. This time should welcome every child into getting lost in their “reading zone”. Atwell states that “the reading zone is the place where readers go when they leave our classroom behind and live vicariously in their books.”

It is crucial that teachers express certain “secrets” in regards to reading workshop to their students from day one. The students need to know that it is okay to “skim, skip, and look ahead” during reading workshop. The student should have complete choice in what they read. I strongly believe that once an effective reading workshop is put into place a love for reading will grow among the students. I also feel that it is important to remember that this isn’t something that is going to happen overnight but in time we will see significant changes. For example, students will read for intrinsic rewards as opposed to extrinsic rewards. They will no longer need those materialistic prizes to feel motivated to read and once this occurs the feeling will be priceless.