The Reading Workshop: Creating Space for Readers

With so many different approaches to teaching reading, how can you make sense of the best paths available? If you begin with Frank Serafini’s The Reading Workshop, you can be certain that each step you take will leave a lasting impression. By describing his day-to-day schedule and giving an overview of how the workshop operates over time, he provides a flexible framework you can adapt and implement to suit your needs. And by bringing his love of literature to bear on his instructional ideas, Serafini shows how you can help students learn to read so they want to.

Serafini explains how various practices—literature circles, read alouds, shared reading, and strategy groups—can be incorporated into teaching and how "preplanned engagements" can blend seamlessly with "response-centered" instruction. Suggestions for setting up a classroom library and museum, selecting multicultural literature and cornerstone books, starting the literature study cycle, and creating "shoebox autobiographies," "invested student discussions," and other student projects are accompanied by helpful charts, diagrams, and visuals to help you get started and keep students involved. Throughout the book, examples and vignettes from Serafini’s classroom experiences offer vivid testaments to the effectiveness of his workshop approach, even for the most reluctant readers.

Georgia Heard has taught writing and poetry for over 25 years in urban, rural, and international classrooms.  She was the 2023 recipient of NCTE’s prestigious Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children.  Her numerous other books for teachers include Heart Maps, The Revision Toolbox, and Finding the Heart of Nonfiction.  The first edition of Awakening the Heart was heralded as one of “12 Books Every Teacher Should Read” by Instructor Magazine.  Georgia Heard received her M.F.A. in poetry from Columbia University and was a founding member of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.

In addition to her Heinemann professional books, Georgia is the coauthor of the professional titles Poetry Lessons to Meet the Common Core Standards and A Place for Wonder, as well as children’s literature such as Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems.

Frank Serafini is the author of the Heinemann title Classroom Reading Assessment. He is a leading voice on the reading workshop, whether the topic is implementation, planning, assessment, or comprehension. His passion for the workshop has helped tens of thousands of teachers find more effective and professionally satisfying teaching through Heinemann professional books such as Around the Reading Workshop in 180 Days, Lessons in Comprehension, and The Reading Workshop and his newest book released in late 2015, Reading Workshop 2.0. Frank is a Professor of Literacy Education at Arizona State University and he brings his ideas, experiences, and deep understanding of reading instruction to teachers around the country as a member of Heinemann Professional Development Services.