Conferring during our workshop time can be tricky, and even more so in Reading Workshop.
The model of conferring is:
RESEARCH
COMPLIMENT
TEACH
LINK
- RESEARCH : ask open ended question about the strategies that the reader is using. e.g. “What are you doing as a reader today? What strategies are you using in your reading?” The student should be doing most of the talking in this part of the conference. Wait-time is a gift here!
- COMPLIMENT : it’s SO easy to skip this part and go straight to teaching, however the compliment is SO important. It connects the student’s ideas (brain research tells us this is important), tells them that you value their learning, and makes them feel like a reader or writer. Be specific, and compliment the writer/reader, not the work. e.g. “Wow, I can see you are really trying to make connections as you read because that’s what readers do-they connect to other books”, OR “You are so smart to be taking notes about the phrases that you love. Readers do that to track their thinking”.
- TEACH : Be specific and explicit. Tell the student that you are going to teach them something, this prepares them to listen for your ONE teaching point. explain, model, get the student to practice in fornt of you. Remember to teach the reader rather than the text. e.g. “Today I am going to teach you that readers…” “Watch how I do it”, “Now you try, can you see a place where you could use this strategy?”
- LINK : Again, brain research shows us that the final Link is an important connection. The Link simply reiterates your teaching point, no need to teach something new. You want to secure what they have just practiced. e.g. “So remember that readers… this might be a strategy that you want to use as a reader”.
Reading conferences can be tricky as reading is an invisible task. Students can use logs to show volume, stamina, and genre variety, and take notes to track their thinking. This can be a great way to help in conferences. It makes reading more concrete and helps us to see the level of thought processes.
