Student Attitudes Regarding a Reading Workshop: The Effects of the Process.

A month-long study examined students' attitudes toward aspects of a specific reading workshop based on the whole language theory of instruction. Of the 23 students in a fifth-grade classroom, 11 became part of the experimental group who participated in the process which incorporated four primary aspects of language arts: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Students in the control group read only during the same time period. A Likert-type survey was administered to the experimental and control groups as preand posttests. In addition, qualitative interviews with the experimental group were conducted following the intervention. Results indicated that students: (1) preferred to select their own reading materials and did not think they spent too much time reading in school; (2) attitudes toward written teacher,feedback and writing about books improved; and (3) found reading and di:!cussions to be important aspects of a language arts program and would follow the existing language arts instruction process fairly closely with some modifications. Time and small sample limitations make the results ungeneralizable. However, the variety of responses and student attitudes shows that teachers will need to incorporate diversity into language arts programs to meet the needs of students with differing interests. (Contains 33 references and 6 figures of data. Appendixes present daily schedules, rules for reading, results of a demographic survey, the attitude survey, interview questions, a reading survey, the schedule of mini-lessons, student introductory letters and samples, and a comparison of the two groups.) (RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************