Reading conferencing has always provided me with the opportunity to not only get to know my students on a more personal level, but to also see where they may be making errors in their reading. For my focus group I chose students that do not receive special education services but are still struggling readers. I try to conference with students at least once every two weeks. While ideally I would love to meet with them every week, time just doesn't permit me to do so. Through conferencing with these students I have noticed several things. For one, a few of them are very fluent readers but struggle with comprehension. This can be misleading to someone who is listening to them read because while they sound like they are reading on grade level, they actually have very little knowledge of what they are reading. I also have had several conferences with this group of six about how to choose correct books. At the beginning of the year many of them were choosing books that were too difficult for them. We discussed how to choose appropriate books that will help them as readers.
Through conferencing I also have been able to see their strengths and weaknesses. For example, these students were able to identify characters and setting rather easily at the beginning of the year so I knew I could dive deeper into characterization and really start analyzing why characters do what they do. It is through conferencing that I am able to see these things that help me guide my instruction.
Conferencing also helps me hold these students accountable for their independent reading time. They know that I may ask them about their books, so they have to be ready to tell me about them. It lets them know that I am checking up on them.
It sounds like the conferencing you're conducting in your room is very helpful. You've picked up on some of the most common issues we see in the older grades. You see that these students are excellent word callers but don't have strong comprehension skills. You're also picking up on their strengths in determining story elements and using that to guide your instruction. These are great reasons to continue your conferencing! You're getting some excellent information from the formative assessments you're conducting and developing goals for your students using this information. The next step could be to include students in on their goal setting. This is something I wish I had done more of when I was in the classroom. Show them the strengths you are noticing and guide them in setting personal goals that will take them even further. I'm happy to help with this!
ReplyDeleteHi Chrissy,
ReplyDeleteLike you, I value conferencing as one of my most effective teaching tools because it provides us as teachers with feedback that we can use to guide our instruction and our students with opportunities to receive invaluable one on one instruction. Thank you for the ways you are utilizing conferencing to help grow your students as readers and as writers. Thanks, Dawn