TC Reading and Writing Project

Sayville is excited to partner with Teachers College to help us implement the Units of Study in Reading and Writing from grades K-5. The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project is one of the world’s premier providers of professional development in the teaching of reading and writing. 

During the writing workshop, students are invited to live, work and learn as writers. They observe their lives and the world around them while collecting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing well-crafted narrative and expository texts. Students receive direct instruction in a mini-lesson, during which the teacher explicitly names a skill proficient writers use that is within reach for most of the class, then demonstrates the skill and provides students with a brief interval of guided practice using it. Students then have time to write, applying the repertoire of skills and strategies they’ve learned, while receiving feedback through one-to-one conferences and small group instruction designed to move them along trajectories of development.

Reader’s Workshop supports explicit instruction in the skills and strategies of proficient reading, following the gradual release of responsibility model. The work in reading, like the work in writing, is grounded in research on evidenced-based teaching (see John Hattie’s Visible Learning, Geoff Petty’s Evidence-Based Teaching, etc). Readers make their thinking about texts visible by talking and writing about texts. Teachers study what readers do, and consider goals that are within reach yet rigorous. Through feedback, teachers give readers an understanding of the progress they have made, and name important goals and work they can do to become more proficient.