Growing Readers and Writers

by Janel C. Atlas

IRA member Joy Brooke used a National Education Association grant to attend the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) at Columbia University in the summer of 2005. Her experience there planted many great ideas that Brooke has been cultivating this year in the Lake Washington School District in Washington State. There, Brooke is a second-grade teacher and president of the Lake Washington Council of IRA.

Upon her return, Brooke started a book club for teachers. More than 60 people have signed up, and interest was so great that it has split into two clubs. Each month, the participants read and discuss one section of Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum, by Lucy Calkins, founder of the TCRWP. There are seven units of study in the series, each covering a separate topic. Classroom workshops include a month each for topics such as “Personal Narrative Writing,” “Writing for Readers,” “The Craft of Revision,” “Authors as Mentors,” “Nonfiction Writing,” and “Poetry.”

Brooke’s school district took a cue from the excitement generated by the primary writing book group and decided to pilot the program in three (K–2) schools in 2005–2006. The district also offers clock hours and credit hours for the book club. Many of the teachers who are teaching the writing units attend the book discussions.

“By the end of the year we will have read, met, and discussed each of the units,” Brooke says. “Some teachers are launching the writing workshop and are right in step. Others are reading it and trying a lesson here or there, while there are some who are just reading the books and attending the book club.”

Also helpful for Brooke and her fellow workshop attendees were strategies for literacy learning. “We discussed the architecture of the minilesson, the importance of matching just the right books to students, holding one-on-one conferences, grouping for small-group strategy lessons, and holding read-alouds with accountable talk,” says Brooke.

For Brooke, the time at the TCRWP was invaluable. “These continuing education programs are vital because they give teachers resources, practical strategies, and the best practices to take back into the classroom to help impact student achievement,” she says. “More than anything, these programs encourage teachers to create writers and readers.”

Brooke sees the results firsthand in her own classroom. During a shared writing activity, Brooke’s students read Eve Bunting’s book The Wall and then modeled Bunting’s work to write a story about when one member of the class moved away. “The story they created is amazing!” says Brooke. “It is writing that evokes emotion and makes us feel. It didn’t come from a formulaic writing program that says to simply state a topic and add details.”

The impact of the Primary Writing units, along with other reading and writing strategies Brooke learned at the TCRWP, is evident, Brooke believes. “My students believe they are writers; they are all authors,” she says.

Janel C. Atlas is a freelance writer based in Newark, Delaware, USA.

Growing readers and writers. (February 2006). Reading Today, 23(4), 37.