Conferring with student readers
During independent reading time, teachers are often conferring with individual students about their reading. Conferences provide the teacher with an opportunity to meet individually with a student to assess progress, to provide guidance as needed, and to assist in goal-setting. Through guiding questions, such as those listed below, the teacher helps the student verbalize reading strategies being used.
| Is this a just right book for you?
| Have you made any connections to your reading?
| What are you working on as a reader today?
| How can I help you with that?
| Have any questions come up while you are reading?
| What are you going to work on next? | |
As reading workshop starts, conferences are short (1-2 minutes) meetings between the teacher and a student to help students settle into reading. Later, longer conferences will be needed to discuss and help students reflect on their reading, and to monitor which books students are currently keeping in their "book boxes". Teachers should establish a schedule to organize how they will meet with students each week that is flexible enough to accommodate problems and "teachable moments" as they arise.
It is important to limit the scope of the conference to one strategy at a time. Teachers should focus on the reader and the strategies being used, not the specific text during a conference- teach the reader not the reading! The goal is to guide students in developing strategies that will transfer to many different texts. It is helpful to keep notes about what was discussed in the conference as a part of ongoing assessment.