Reading Workshop and the Science of Reading: Are They Really Opposites?

Recently, I saw a comment string on Facebook where someone asked reading workshop.  One of the first replies was a very matter-of-fact comment that she wouldn’t think of considering it, as she instead “follows the science of reading.”  Which made me wonder two things: 1) why does this commenter believe that reading workshop and the science of reading aren’t compatible?  And 2) is she correct in saying that reading workshop and science of reading are truly opposites?  I’ve always been a big supporter of a workshop approach, but I’m also committed to evidence-based instruction and designing lessons that truly benefit students.  So I thought this was worth digging into.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this debate on social media.  But it might actually be asking the wrong question. 

It’s not whether reading workshop and the science of reading are compatible. The better question is what reading workshop actually is. 

Reading workshop isn’t a philosophy of reading instruction. It’s just a lesson structure. And whether it aligns with the science of reading depends entirely on what happens inside that structure. 

First, let’s define reading workshop. Because the way I define it and the way you define it may not be the same thing.  So it’s important to get clear on that first.

To me, reading workshop is simply a lesson structure. The teacher connects to previous learning, clearly and explicitly teaches a new or related strategy or skill, models it, and gives students a chance to practice it in authentic reading.   That practice could be done independently, with a peer, or even in a small group.  Any reading material can be used, whether a grade level text, decodable text, or another text specifically chosen to support the instructional purpose .  While students are working on a lesson-related task or reading independently (assigned or student-selected), the teacher provides targeted feedback and support through small group instruction and conferring with students.  What the teacher sees and hears during this time informs their next teaching steps. 

Reading workshop lessons are all about teaching the many strategies involved in tackling complex text, self-monitoring and staying focused, and digging into the choices an author makes.

Nothing about this structure dictates what the teacher says in those lessons or exactly how to design them. 

That’s up to the teacher. The teacher is the one to decide which standards, reading skills, and student needs to teach into. There might be a provided lesson in their hand or the teacher might create one herself.  Usually, it’s a mix of both, because no lesson created by someone else somewhere else is likely to be exactly what your students need.  

In other words, two teachers can both say they do reading workshop while providing very different instruction. The label alone tells us very little about the quality or content of the teaching. The label alone tells us nothing about the quality or content of the teaching. 

What is taught in reading workshop lessons?

Phonics, phonemic awareness (if needed), and explicit vocabulary and morphology lessons are not the kinds of workshop lessons I’ve described. These are explicitly taught–mostly separately–as well as woven into other parts of the day and other literacy routines, like read aloud and shared reading.  

That does not mean these skills are absent from a classroom that includes reading workshop. It just means they deserve their own dedicated instructional routines rather than serving as the focus of a strategy-focused workshop lesson. 

Reading workshop is different.

If workshop is simply a structure, then the important question isn’t what we call it. It’s what we put inside it. 

It’s a lot like cooking.  

Different cooks might all want to make pasta bolognese.  One might rely on their trusty, handed-down-from-great-grandma recipe that uses only fresh ingredients.  Another will adjust a Pinterest recipe based on their dietary needs.  Another might just buy a kit from the grocery store shelf, which includes all processed ingredients.

All three are making the same thing-pasta bolognese.  But the end result of each will vary greatly in how they taste.  

Why?  

Because of what they each put into it.

Exactly like workshop instruction.

So. What does it mean, really, to “follow the science of reading” in lessons?  And can it actually exist in a workshop model?

The term “science of reading” is defined differently depending on the source, but the definition I most appreciate is Jennifer Serravallo’s.  She doesn’t just say “it’s what we know about how to teach reading” (what does that even actually mean?!).  She actually explains what all goes into it. She defines it as:

”A vast, interdisciplinary body of research explaining what happens when a reader is reading proficiently, how reading skill develops, and how to teach reading. Often drawing from fields such as neuroscience, cognitive psychology, education, linguistics, and more, the science of reading can help inform educators about how to support foundational skills such as phonics, comprehension development, executive functioning skills necessary for successful reading, and more.  The science of reading is not an approach to teaching reading.”

Jennifer Serravallo

Which means, yes, our instruction should include what the National Reading Panel deemed as the five essential areas of instruction:  phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.  But it also includes executive function skill development, too, as more recent research has shown.    

It’s important to pay attention to that last part in Serravallo’s definition:  the science of reading is not an approach to teaching reading.  It informs our instructional decisions.  

Just like the cook who makes everything from scratch using only fresh ingredients, reduces the salt level in a recipe, or purchases ready-made noodles so they can spend their time making a great homemade sauce instead.  

All decisions about their approach to the recipe, based on what they know about cooking the dish, their available time, and dietary need.  

Just like teaching reading.

In other words, research informs the decisions we make. It doesn’t prescribe one lesson structure. 

Phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary, as I’ve already said, get their own attention in a literacy block and are also interwoven into other parts of the day.  So while there may be some work on this in a reading workshop, workshop lessons aren’t really meant for this.  These things need a different kind of instruction–explicit and systematic.  It’s what the research has told us for many years.  

But those two other big pillars: comprehension and executive function skills?  

Check and check.  

These are the core lessons in a reading workshop–as long as that’s how the lessons are designed.

A well-designed reading workshop naturally incorporates many instructional practices supported by decades of educational research. 

They incorporate a gradual release of responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983), explicit teaching and modeling (Barak Rosenshine, Principles of Instruction, 2012), and teacher feedback (Clarke and Hattie, 2018). Ongoing formative assessment  and immediate teacher feedback about students’ understanding and growing skill development take place as teachers confer and work with small groups.

This allows them to offer timely, targeted support. 

All teaching principles that have always been important.  

So returning to the original question, does reading workshop follow the science of reading?

I say yes, absolutely.  As long as the teacher in charge of planning and delivering the lessons does.  

Part of the confusion of that Facebook commenter is totally understandable. Some teachers may very well have relied heavily on independent reading with very little explicit instruction or systematic skill development and called it workshop. If that’s someone’s experience with workshop, it’s easy to see why they would conclude the model itself conflicts with the science of reading. 

But that’s a problem with how the workshop was implemented, not with the workshop structure itself. Again, it’s what goes into it that matters.  Not the name. 

A workshop approach isn’t what determines whether instruction is aligned with the science of reading. Teachers are in charge of those instructional moves. The lesson structure isn’t what matters most. The teaching decisions made within that structure are.  Reading workshop and the science of reading are in fact very, very compatible.  

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Who is Coach from the Couch?  I’m Michelle Ruhe, a 25+ year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls! 

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