Monday Musings - January 12, 2015

In last week's Monday Musings post, I asked for your input on what literacy practices were strongly in place in your classroom and what needed strengthening.  Here are the survey results:

While the strengths were spread out, the overwhelming majority identified conferring as an area to strengthen. I can imagine a number of reasons why that is...it takes time, not sure what to do with each student, you're not used to it yet, you feel like you're not accomplishing as much by meeting with 1 student vs. a group, etc.

Here are some important points I read in Read, Write Lead on 1:1 conferring...

On Reading Conferences:
The practice of having daily conferences on students' self-selected texts for instruction/assessment is crucial for learning students' strengths and where additional instruction is needed.  For our struggling readers, consistent reading conferences can change their reading trajectory. Routman writes that "in-depth observation with each student allows us to carefully check appropriate text choice, engagement with the text, reading habits, "fix-up" strategies, vocabulary meanings, and so on (p.135)." Routman also points out that many of our reluctant readers waste precious time by pretending to read or staring at text they don't understand, which is why daily reading conferences are essential to make sure these students are actually reading and learning more from us to become proficient and self-regulating readers. It is important to use conference time to celebrate the reader's strengths, check for comprehension, and provide feedback and teaching targeting to the learner's most important needs to move forward.


On Writing Conferences:
Regie often writes/speaks about holding public writing conferences; this is a one-on-one conference held in front of the class (with the student's permission). There's no "formula" to follow and Regie says "put the writer before the writing." As you read the student's writing, Regie says to ask yourself :

• "What is this writer trying to say?"
•  "What are this writer's strengths to be celebrated?" 
• "What's most important to say, do, and focus on right now to ensure this writer will want to go on writing?"

Highlight different things they did well in their writing (so all students can also learn to write with those good qualities) and provide feedback for what to do next.

What's holding you back from conferring with your struggling readers/writers? What action can you take to overcome that to start providing these students with what they need?