Reader's Workshop

I have just finished reading the article "Try Reading Workshop In Your Classroom", by Kathleen Swift and she discusses the benefits of Reading Workshop compared to Basal Reading. I have to say that I am sold on Reading Workshop, based on the research she did on both. Reading Workshop fosters growth in reading and enthusiasm for reading. I cannot wait to teach Reading Workshop in my future classroom!
How do I envision Reading Workshop? Well, let me see. In this scenario I am a teacher in first grade and I am ready to do Reading Workshop with my little friends.  First, I will start with a mini lesson. For this mini lesson, my focus will be on relating the text to self.  I will talk for about 5-10 minutes about something I just read in the newspaper.  It was an article about a dog who was lost and then reunited with his family.  I will talk about how that article made me remember a time when my dog, Sammy, was lost and how worried I was at the time.  I will talk about who found Sammy and what it felt like when we were reunited. I will then read a story to the class, and ask them to listen for something in this story that ever happened to them. As I am reading the story, I will occasionally stop reading and say: "Hmm, that reminds me of ....", to model to the students that a good reader stops to make connections.  After I finish reading the story, I will ask the children if they heard anything in the story that reminded them of something that ever happened to them. They can share these stories with the class.
When the mini lesson is over, the children will get the books they are reading. The books they are reading have been chosen by the students, not by me. This way, the children will be reading books they want to read.  This will motivate and engage them.  I will ask the children to make connections to their books, like we did in the mini lesson.  After they read, they will write in their reflection journal on the connections they made.  They will share these connections with the class or with a partner at the end of Reading Workshop.
While the children are reading independently, I will call homogeneous groups to the table for Guided Reading. This is the perfect time for me to help small groups of readers work on different skills.  This small group instruction is beneficial for students as well as for the teacher, since it tells the teacher exactly what the students are struggling with.
I think Reading Workshop is so successful because the students are choosing their own books to read.  This way there are no 'good' groups and 'low' groups, and all students are reading together.  By choosing their own books, the students are more invested in reading.  They get a comment from the teacher after each entry, which I think is very powerful.  I am a college student and I am still looking for comments from my professors when I get my papers back!
Reading Workshop sets children up for reading success and instills a love for reading, which will hopefully last a lifetime!