Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning - Early Learning Community

students must be reading at the instructional or independent level. In addition to consideringreadability, however, Miller encourages her students to take account of content, schema,motivation, and variety (41). If students are choosing from a wide spectrum of books aboutwhich they have prior knowledge and are interested in, they will be more likely to be engaged inthe workshop for 45 minutes.Another component crucial to the Readers’ Workshop is conferring. Miller argues thatconferring is especially important at the beginning of the year, when many children are not yetreading. Miller writes, “Although learning to read and comprehend books is our goal, workingwith books helps us get there and introduces children to the real world of reading” (33).Conferring is a wonderful manner in which teachers can simultaneously build a child’s confidencewith regard to reading and learn about him or her as a reader. It is also a way to ascertain whetherstudents are utilizing the strategies taught in the mini-lessons, or to learn new ideas from studentsthemselves.Sharing is the final element of the structure of the Readers’ Workshop. First, sharing theirjourneys as readers gives students the opportunity to “practice oral language and the civility ofconversation” (36). Second, sharing is a way to encourage students’ reflectiveness about theirreading, to share ideas and strategies that are helpful to readers, and to bring closure to theworkshop by revisiting the content of the mini-lesson.Reading with Meaning is one example of a whole-language approach to teaching literacy,and one that is particularly focused on teaching some of the “big five” themes in reading:comprehension, and to a lesser extent, vocabulary and fluency. Its emphasis is not so much onphonemic awareness and phonics; however, the flexible nature of the Readers’ Workshop wouldallow for integration of these themes into the classroom. I believe that it is essential for anyteacher of reading to address all aspects of literacy, and I appreciated Miller’s model of theReaders’ Workshop primarily because it is so flexible and would allow me to weave everything

from phonics to comprehension and appreciation into my literacy teaching using well-written,authentic children’s literature.Works CitedMiller, Debbie. Reading with Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades.Stenhouse Publishers, 2002.