Reading Conferences

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R e a d i n g M o n o g r a p h S e r i e s

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R e a d i n g M o n o g r a p h S e r i e s

Reading Conferences

Introduction 1A Reading Conference 3Being Prepared for the Conference 6Tools of the Reading Conference 7The Instructional Building Blocks of a Reading Conference 9Observing and AssessingTeaching and ModelingCoaching

Conferring Tips 14General Guidelines for Conducting

Reading ConferencesTake Time for ReflectionTalk About ReadingFocus on StrategiesGetting the Most Out of a ConferenceFinding Time to Confer

Reading Conferences

Table of Contents

Types of Reading Conferences 20Getting-to-Know-You ConferenceReading-Strategies ConferenceBuild-a-Reading-Life ConferenceAssessment ConferenceTake-Action ConferenceReading-As-a-Writer ConferenceSmall-Group Conference and Strategy Meetings

Observing Reading Teachers 44The Teacher As Reader 45A Final Note 46Appendix A 47The Reading Conference and the Middle and High School ELA Standards

Appendix B 53Sample Entries for a Student Assessment Notebook and Teacher Assessment Notebook

Appendix C 54Sample Reading Survey

Appendix D 55A Reading-Strategies Checklist

References 57

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Conferences obviously facilitate the individualization that educators (and parents) always dream of but find so hard to provide in practice….In a very real sense, conferences are a way of opening a whole separate channel of communication between teacher and students, one that is unexploited in classrooms where the talk is predominantly teacher-to-group. (Daniels and Bizar 1998, 156)

Reading Conferences

IntroductionWithin the Readers Workshop conferring is a powerful way to communicate with students about their goals, skills and choices in reading. Through individualized conferring you can offer precise coaching and direct instruction. You can share that one piece of advice, demonstrate that one strategy, or ask that one question that can start to make all the difference in your students’ reading now, and for the rest

of their lives, pointing students in the direction of becoming lifelong readers. And while conferring, students can raise questions, tell you about their goals, discuss their strategies for reading, and collaborate with you to develop new ways of approaching text. Through small-group conferring, you can monitor student book discussion group progress, convey information and teach strategies needed by a smaller portion of the class, and reinforce work done in

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2small-group instructional sessions. Conferring is where you have the opportunity to sit next to students, work with them, listen to them, and help them address their needs as readers.

In a recent joint position paper, “Supporting Young Adolescents’ Literacy Learning,” the International Reading Association and the National Middle School Association recommend that reading instruction and opportunities to read should be provided by schools across the nation. The four main points of the position paper are:

l Continuous reading instruction for all young adolescents: This instruction requires that all middle school teachers understand reading/learning process, the complexity and diverse needs of young adolescents, and know how to help students develop both the competence and desire to read increasingly complex materials across the curriculum….

l Reading instruction that is individually appropriate: Providing reading instruction that is appropriate for each student… requires well-prepared classroom teachers who integrate individualized reading instruction within their content areas. This also requires reading specialists who can help

their colleagues acquire skills and techniques for delivering developmentally appropriate reading instruction in their content areas. Reading specialists are also necessary for providing intervention for struggling readers.

l Assessment that informs instruction: Assessment plans and measures must show learners their strengths as well as their needs. The measures should help guide their teachers in designing instruction that will best help them grow in reading proficiency. Large-scale assessment programs that focus on comparisons of student groups across districts, states and provinces, and nations are not sufficient. Adequate assessment measures must be supported by strong informal reading assessments (such as those advocated in this monograph) that take place in the classrooms and involve teachers and students in the process. These plans must be used to shape and reshape instruction so that it meets the needs of all students.

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l Ample opportunities to read and discuss reading with others: To achieve this goal, schools…must have ready access to a wide variety of print and nonprint resources that will foster in students independence, confidence and a lifelong desire to read….Students must have many opportunities to choose reading materials that are interesting and engaging. School-based professionals should model reading in various forms, have a love of reading and possess the skills needed to help students progress toward mastery in all aspects of reading. (2001)

The reading conference is one measure that can be used to meet these four criteria to ensure that students acquire the necessary literacy skills they need for and beyond their secondary education. The position of the National Center on Education and the Economy is that explicit reading instruction and opportunities to read should continue into high school and as long as students need instructional support in reading so that every student is ready to read and write proficiently at the end of their secondary education.

For these reasons, the reading conference can be the cornerstone of a successful secondary school reading program for students who struggle with reading and for students who have already achieved fluency.

A Reading ConferenceA reading conference is a short, instructional session that happens between a teacher and a single student or a small group of students during the work period of Readers Workshop as the rest of the class engages in various activities: independent reading, book discussion groups, creating

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A reading conference is a short, instructional meeting that happens between a teacher and a single student or a small group of students during the work period of the Readers Workshop as the rest of the class engages in various activities: independent reading, book discussion groups, creating reading responses in their Reader’s Notebooks, adding to their annotated bibliographies, practicing reading fluency with a partner, etc.

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4reading responses in their Reader’s Notebooks, adding to their annotated bibliographies, practicing reading fluency with a partner, etc. A reading conference is the time in which you, as the teacher, may:

l Guide students to learn more deeply about the standards and to work toward meeting a variety of English language arts (ELA) standards.1

l Listen to a student read aloud to determine accuracy and fluency (take WCPM2).

l Discuss what the student is reading to determine comprehension.

l Review reading strategies demonstrated in read-aloud/think- aloud or lessons.

l Demonstrate reading strategies again with the text the student is working on/reading.

l Talk with the student about any problems you have noticed or the student has identified.

l Make recommendations regarding texts the student might enjoy (based on student expressed inclination or reading history or level).

l Discuss reading habits to help students see patterns in their reading history and habits.

l Discuss reading goals to help students develop goals they can achieve and move beyond.

l Help students find books that are appropriate to their reading level and that will help them grow as readers.

Begin by establishing the purpose(s) of the conference. As the conference unfolds, you should make a decision about what will most help your student make progress whether it is modeling a reading strategy, discussing reading goals, talking about texts, reviewing previous lessons, exploring possible reading responses, etc. Depending on the focus of the reading conference, outcome and follow-up will vary (more on the various kinds of conferences later). At the end of each

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1 See Appendix A for a detailed explanation of how you can demonstrate for students how they can work to meet ELA standards through conferring. 2 An explanation of WCPM (words correct per minute), a gage of reading fluency, can be found later in this monograph. If you have students who need additional support for reading instruction, you will need to seek additional information, assistance and/or training to help these students. See your district or school secondary reading support person or refer to the ramp-up courses for more information at www.ncee.org.

conference (no matter the focus), you should make a note regarding the content and results of the conference in your Teacher Assessment Notebook so that you may return to it as a reminder at the beginning of the next conference and to help you plan instruction. Students should take notes regarding the purpose and results of the conference in their Student Assessment Notebook.

In Methods that Matter: Six Structures for Best Practice Classrooms, Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar describe a reading conference like this:

Teachers tend to wonder what

information or advice they can deliver

in a conference, just as they might

decide what information to present in

a lecture. But conferences should not

be treated as simply another delivery

system for teacher presentations….

What conferences uniquely provide are

chances for teachers to take on some

very different roles — as mentor, coach

and model. Instead of delivering facts,

teachers can demonstrate patterns of

thinking, habits of mind. (1998, 157)

A reading conference is not simply a conversation about a book, neither is it a brief instructional session directed to a student or students. It is a time for you and the students to establish a different type of reading and learning relationship than is possible in a large-group setting.

A conference can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, but a conference is typically about 7–10 minutes and should be focused in its goals. However, longer conferences, up to 15 minutes, are sometimes necessary, particularly when students require extra support. Many teachers try to meet with each student as often as possible, either for full conferences or for quick, follow-up consultations. How often you confer with a student or students in small groups, will depend on your teaching schedule and on the number of students you see daily. (More on the length of conferences and their frequency later.) But the more regular you confer with students, the better you will be able to help them through direct instruction which addresses their particular needs.

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reading by conferring with individual students, you also help them work toward meeting the E3a standard for speaking and listening. If you confer with small groups, you help those students work toward meeting the E3b standard for speaking and listening. (See Appendix A for more information on working to meet ELA standards through conferring.)

Being Prepared for the ConferenceBoth you and your students need to be prepared for a conference in order for it to be successful. With your students you will want to create a system to ensure that they know why they are conferring with you and what materials might be needed. You also need to know what you need to bring to a particular conference. As you and your students begin conferring, you may find that a sign-up or conference request process might be what is needed. You may find that a bulletin board with a chart could help you and students prepare for conferences. A chart (see sample on page 7) could include columns for participants, who is asking for the conference, what is the purpose of the conference, books or writing needed, other supplies, etc. Being prepared for conferring should be an ongoing process in which both you and your students have a voice. (See the following section for more details about preparing to confer.)

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A reading conference is not

simply a conversation about

a book, neither is it a brief

instructional session directed

to a student or students.

It is a time for you and the

students to establish a different

type of reading and learning

relationship than is possible in

a large-group setting.

Tools of the Reading ConferenceImportant factors in making conferences work are your willingness and the students’ willingness to talk about reading. To facilitate a range of conference-based activities, it is a good idea to have prepared:

l Conference appointment chart: You will not be able to confer with every student every day, so you need to keep track of who needs to see you, when and whom you need to see, and for what reason. A large conference appointment chart will help you organize conferences, and

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Conference ScheduleWhen2 p.m. 2/10

2:30 p.m. 2/13

2 p.m. 2/14

2:15 p.m. 2/14

2 p.m. 2/16

2:15 p.m. 2/16

2:10 p.m. 2/17

WhoSylvia with Mr. Reed4

Sci Fi Book Club

Small Group #2 with Mr. Reed

Small Group #3 with Mr. Reed

John L.

Joanna with Mr. Reed

Book Discussion Group — Mighty Flyers with Mr. Reed

About3

Reading Speak; making inferences

Picking new book to read

Practicing reading aloud/character development

Work on inferring

Talk about book

Assessment conference

Text structure

Materials NeededCopies of Speak; Reader’s Notebooks

Reader’s Notebook; wish list for reading

Copies of The House on Mango Street and Reader’s Notebooks

Copies of Purple Hair? I Don’t Care; Reader’s Notebook

Monster

Provided by Mr. Reed

Latest book-group text (everyone needs their own copy); Reader’s Notebook

Other SuppliesPens or pencils; sticky-notes5

Something to write with

Sticky notes and pencils

Pencil/sticky-notes

none

Provided by Mr. Reed

Pens/pencils; sticky- notes

3 You may choose to be more circumspect about this detail to spare student feelings. 4 Including “with your name” can indicate that you — as the teacher — are requesting the conference. Students’ names or a group’s name alone could indicate they are requesting a conference. 5 By crossing out all details of a conference, you can indicate it has already occurred. You may also choose to add notes to the chart, such as: “rescheduled to ________” or “turned into a small-group conference. “

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8it will help students keep track of when they need to be ready to confer with you and why. Columns for student names, appointment times and the purpose for a conference should work well. You may or may not wish to distinguish whether a conference is scheduled at your request or a student’s request. But if this is the case, you can add an additional column to list who requests a conference (see previous sample).

l A table and chairs used primarily for conferring: Though you may conduct casual conferences where students are working, there are times when you will schedule meetings that work best around a table. This is particularly true for small-group conferences. This works best while you are establishing the rituals and routines of the Readers Workshop. This strategy can also be helpful in guiding readers to work independently during the work session.

l Books: In many conferences, you will be referring directly to what the student is presently reading. The student may want to talk to you about places where he or she is confused, and you may want to hear or observe the student reading from this text. You might

also want to bring books you think the student would be interested in reading in the future. As well, you may want to ask students to read aloud in the conference so you can evaluate their fluency in reading.

l Reader’s Notebook (with annotated bibliography): This notebook contains a student’s responses to reading fiction and nonfiction, notes about what a student may wish to read next (this may overlap somewhat with the Student Assessment Notebook on this topic), and the annotated bibliography (usually located in the back of the Reader’s Notebook), a comprehensive list of all the texts they read with annotation and other information you may determine needs to be included.

l Student Assessment Notebook: Students keep records of reading conferences in this notebook, strategies they are attempting, goals for improvement, instruction in reading6. (See Appendix B for sample entries in a Student Assessment Notebook.)

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6 Students should be keeping track of what instruction they receive in reading conferences, creating charts of useful information, copying certain charts or work that the whole class does, making notes on what they are learning and how they are learning.

l Teacher Assessment Notebook: You keep conference notes in this notebook for all students. Your records will include what students are reading, what sorts of strategies they are attempting, information about students’ fluency, group information, etc. (See Appendix B for sample entries in a Teacher Assessment Notebook.)

l Copy of the appropriate standards: You will want to keep a copy of the New Standards® Performance Standards for middle or high school nearby. You may also want to reproduce all or part of Appendix A to help you show students how they can work to meet ELA standards through conferring.

With these simple tools, and the teaching building blocks offered in the next section, you will be able to conduct many types of conferences discussed in this monograph.

The Instructional Building Blocks of a Reading ConferenceMost reading conferences are a collaborative effort shared by you and the student or students you confer with. You and the students evaluate and decide together what they most need in their reading life. Afterwards, you consider how to teach or model some strategy to help the students meet particular goals. You help them start to work in the new way or toward the new goal. You help students see themselves as readers through reading conferences, help them build confidence as readers whether they begin as fairly proficient readers or students who struggle with reading. You may, at first, find this process difficult or awkward, but as with most teaching procedures and strategies, in time it will become more fluid and effective.

The following are basic overviews of the process of conferring and the purposes for reading conferences.

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10Observing and AssessingOften, you may come to conferences with an idea of what you hope to achieve with a particular student. This knowledge comes from:

l Observations of the student at work, which may include listening to the student read aloud

l Interviews with the student about their reading habits (conducted during a conference)

l Analysis of reading assessments (observational surveys, student surveys or checklists, anecdotal notes, or fluency assessments — all recorded in your Teacher Assessment Notebook)

l Knowledge of the class curriculum for the year

l Knowledge of a student’s own expressed needs, goals and progress

l Records of the student’s interests, goals and progress from your Teacher Assessment Notebook

Of course, your understanding of the skills of proficient readers, the world of texts in general, and the particular text a student is reading will all contribute to your evaluation of where the student needs to move next in reading. Just as you may wish to confer for a specific reason or purpose, students will want to take the initiative and ask for conferences with specific goals in mind.

As you consider all of the factors inherent in the conference scenario, you should take a moment at the beginning of the conference to find out a little more about each student, either by observing or asking questions and by referring to previous entries in your Teacher Assessment Notebook. The new data sharpens the other information you have about each student as a reader, and they help you to make decisions about how to work with each student every day and throughout the school year.

Assessment conferences are key to the individualized instruction that can make such a difference in a student’s ability to improve their reading. Assessment also drives what you focus on in future conferences and should drive whole-group and small-group reading instruction.

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l Help a student set up a partnership with another student reading the same book, a book by the same author or a book on the same topic.

l Help students set up a book discussion group or club.

l Ask a reader to try a new way of thinking, perhaps picturing the story as a movie while reading, or perhaps attempting a sketch of a brief scene.

l Reinforce lessons on meeting standards taught to the whole group.

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Teaching and ModelingOnce you have evaluated the student’s progress and needs through observation, conversation and the records kept in your Teacher Assessment Notebook, and once you and the student have made some decision about the goal of a particular conference, you begin the process of teaching and modeling. You may choose to address specific student needs first through small-group reading instruction (strategy meetings), but there may be occasions when you need to offer a student extra support in a conference. Teaching and modeling in the conference setting can mean that you teach something slightly new, entirely new, or remind a student of a previous lesson, and then ask a student to apply the knowledge to an appropriate reading situation. Teaching and modeling can also encompass any of the following:

l Remind a student or students of the details of a particular habit, behavior or strategy.

l Participate with the student in a brief shared reading (see the Read-Aloud/Think-Aloud monograph for more details of shared reading).

l Demonstrate a strategy by reading aloud and thinking aloud.

l Offer a type of reading tool, such as sticky-notes or highlighting tape, to help the student read more efficiently, by pausing and responding to the reading.

In conferences, you may find

that by slightly altering the

course of students’ reading

habits, by creating situations

in which students must think

about reading differently, you

will likely help them not only

with the current texts they

are reading but with many

future reading situations.

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In conferences, you may find that by slightly altering the course of students’ reading habits, by creating situations in which students must think about reading differently, you will likely help them not only with the current texts they are reading but with many future reading situations.

Reading-strategy conferences, whether the instruction is individualized or focused on a small group, can reinforce what you have taught in whole-group lessons and extend students’ understanding the strategies they may employ to become better, and even life-long readers.

CoachingOnce you have offered some feedback regarding the students’ process and/or have demonstrated a particular way of working or approaching text in any setting (whole-group, small-group or individual instruction), students need to transfer that knowledge and apply it to their own work. This is not always easy and certainly not automatic. You will find that if you ask students to apply the knowledge immediately, they can begin the transformation from knowledge acquired to knowledge internalized. You can coach in a conference for students who need more support any time following explicit reading instruction. With you nearby, acting as the coach — a resource — the practice is more likely to lead to the kind of learning which can influence students’ reading habits permanently. You can coach individuals in a conference or small groups. As you get to know your students as readers, you will be able to better determine when they need you to act as the coach and when they need you to deliver direct instruction.

Consider these options for coaching readers:

l After demonstrating in a whole-group or small-group lesson how students can mark important parts of a book with sticky-notes to keep track of what is going on, ask students to try out the strategy. Observe which students might need extra support and schedule a conference to coach them through the process.

l Do the same with monitoring for meaning and fix-up strategies. Coach students who need additional support.

l After teaching and modeling strategies for dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary, coach students in a conference to reinforce previous lessons or add to the approaches for learning vocabulary that they already know. Have students apply this knowledge (or new knowledge) to the passage(s) with unfamiliar vocabulary they may have marked in the texts they are reading. Observe and answer questions as necessary.

l After demonstrating how partners can work together to practice fluency or work with each other to help with comprehension, confer with students who need direct coaching. You may need to teach and model again how a partnership

can actually work and would be helpful in determining meaning and practicing fluency. Help students establish reading partnerships with specific goals through coaching. Observe the partners and continue to coach as necessary.

By helping students practice a reading comprehension strategy or a fix-up strategy or by helping students form a partnership to practice comprehension and fluency, you are reinforcing the habits of proficient readers, helping them internalize strategies and learning for future use. Before you begin coaching, the explicit instruction and demonstration has already taken place — your job as coach is to remind students of the instruction (perhaps re-teaching as necessary), but mostly, as the coach you need to be there to assist when students need you. As you don the role of coach, you can observe and make notes not only for immediate instruction (while still conferring), but your notes can drive and direct future instruction as well. You should never pass up a chance to assess student reading.

Coaching students in any sort of conference is vital as students need to know you are there and available to help them with various difficulties.

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14l Keep simple records. (Robb 1998,

10–12)

It is important that you establish a comfortable environment for conferring so that students feel safe and are willing to receive instruction or participate in assessment. Students should know they will be participating in an experience which is meant to benefit them. Because students need to be active participants in the conference, you want to make sure that you do not rush to fill gaps in conversation; students will frequently need time to think so they can respond. You will have many questions you will want to ask students (rather than just sharing information), but you should also be open to answering questions appropriate to mastering procedural knowledge. Students may exhibit behavior that signals distress in conferences (silence, fidgeting, averted eyes, hand wringing, etc.). If you see these signals, you may need to determine what the cause is (shy, did not do work, afraid of getting bad grades, etc.). You can help all students set goals while conferring, such as: what to read, how much to read, where to read, when to read, what strategies to attempt, etc. And, most importantly, you must keep simple records which can help you guide student growth and inform instruction.

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Conferring TipsGeneral Guidelines for Conducting Reading ConferencesThere are several basic things to remember when conducting a reading conference:

l Keep a nurturing tone.

l Give students time to think.

l Follow up with more questions, not answers.

l Listen carefully for distress signals.

l Set goals.

With reflection, you can make

reasoned and wise choices

about how to help readers in

conferences, whether those

choices reflect keener insights

into the reader’s needs,

more appropriate ways of

communicating ideas to the

reader or new plans to

research the reader’s skills

in certain areas.

Take Time for ReflectionIn order to confer effectively and powerfully, you need to create opportunities for yourself and the students to think about their current habits and skills and their potential reading futures. Without this time for reflection, conferring may become an instructional tool which addresses only the most obvious issues, not necessarily the most important ones. Time for reflection is vital:

In order to consider ourselves planful,

deliberate, crafting teachers, then, it is

essential to find some way to step out

of the rush of classroom events, pulling

back to ask, What is happening in my

class and what am I trying to do with

that? Too often, our questions about

planning are limited to What am I going

to say next? or What am I going to do

tomorrow? or What is my activity for

Monday morning?… What we need to

learn from good teachers is the habit of

pulling back and asking, Where are we?

What are we trying to do? and then to

plan a new future. (Bomer 1995, 200)

With reflection, you can make reasoned and wise choices about how to help readers in conferences, whether those choices reflect keener insights into the reader’s needs, more appropriate ways of communicating ideas to the reader or new plans to research the reader’s skills in certain areas.

Students also need to reflect on how they are learning as well as what they are learning. After a conference concludes, you may want to ask students to write brief responses to their conferences to give themselves needed time for reflection, to reinforce what was learned, to ask questions for the next conference, or to follow up with ideas that can guide their practice. They will have already written notes in their Student Assessment Notebooks about the content of a conference. You may choose to ask for a reflective response to accompany the content notes to further illuminate instruction — and even provide topics for future conferring.

The kind of thoughtful assessment you (and your students) are able to do when you give yourself time to reflect can effect a great deal of change in a short period of time.

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16Talk About ReadingIt is not easy to talk about reading, especially about reading processes. When you begin conferring with students, they may be uncomfortable or unable to articulate their thoughts on reading. One way to help students is to begin and sustain a focused conversation about the world of texts and reading. Such a conversation should be modeled during read-aloud/think-aloud (see the Read-Aloud/Think-Aloud monograph for more details) and through the ensuing whole-class conversation (also see the Book Discussion Groups monograph). Modeling productive conversation about texts is how students can learn to participate in book discussion groups (and book clubs) of their own. Once they become more comfortable with different ways of talking about texts and reading, they will continue to grow as learners and readers and writers. You should continue to demonstrate the best ways of talking about texts and reading through direct instruction in whole-group and small-group lessons.

When you begin talking about issues in your own reading and in students’ reading, the whole classroom community can begin thinking about questions such as:

l What kind of reader am I?

l What do I do when I have reading difficulty?

l How do I know when a book is just the right level for me?

When students begin thinking about their own reading, learn the language necessary for talking about reading, and become comfortable with self-reflection about their reading (metacognition), they will have begun to take positive steps toward improved reading habits and skills.

Be sure to discuss the reading standards as part of this conversation so students will know more about the goals they should be adopting in order to work to those standards. For example, a Building-a-Reading-Life conference is an ideal place/situation in which you can continue to teach/ model/coach students to become, not just better readers, but students who can think about reading and incorporate it into all facets of their education and lives. This is also an ideal conference in which you and a student can talk about the E1a standard.

Focus on StrategiesIn a reading conference, if a student misses a crucial point or event, it is often tempting to say, “Go back and read that chapter, book or page again to see if you missed anything important.“ This advice is not specific enough. And although it may help the reader understand that re-reading can be one kind of strategy for increasing comprehension, this advice may not help the student next time there is a difficult passage which must be read and understood. Students often need more directed advice about reading to get the meaning.

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Focus on reading strategies the student used that led to the misunderstanding rather than on the content itself and what was missed in the reading. Asking questions or offering prompts such as the following can help you help students focus on strategies:

l Are you reading too quickly and skipping parts of the text? Try slowing your reading speed.

l Are you reading too slowly and getting bogged down in details instead of seeing the larger, more important things? Try to speed up your reading.

l Try stopping to ask yourself a question about the passage you are reading.

l Try stopping to visualize the passage you are reading.

l Look back on what you have already read; recall what you have just read by jotting down a few brief notes.

l Check out reference texts for additional information to help you.

A conference is an opportunity to consider how the reading strategies of a student might be strengthened, not necessarily how to master the content of a particular text. A student’s comprehension (or lack of comprehension) of a text can show you something about a student’s use (or lack of use) of reading strategies. More importantly, a student’s comprehension of a text can provide you with an opportunity to figure out what needs to be taught to help that student improve his or her reading process and subsequent understanding of it.

Reading strategies conferences and small-group conferences (in which you conduct strategy meetings) will help you directly meet the needs of students as they learn to explicitly employ reading strategies to a variety of texts.

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18Getting the Most Out of a ConferenceConferences should be occasions of exhilarating textual interaction and engagement as well as a time for assessment, setting of goals, reinforcing lessons taught; they can be times when you share your knowledge of texts with students, from the more fluent readers to those who struggle with reading. During conferences, you may find merit in suggesting that students:

l Explore other genres new to them

l Read other books by an author you know they have read

l Read authors’ biographies

l Investigate an author’s writing practices (via website or biography)

l Explore the research that created a particular fiction or nonfiction text

l Find all they can in all genres about a certain topic

l Read all the books in one series

l Re-read favorite books to find new information

l Form partnerships or book discussion groups or book clubs based on their interests

l Join a group to investigate genres they have not been interested in

l Form cross-age book clubs that encompass different grade levels and school staff, even parents (adapted from Hindley, 1996, 118–19)

With these kinds of intellectual stimuli, you will add depth and richness to the reading conference conversation; it may turn out to be enlightening for both you and your students. Every reader needs to be able to talk to other readers — these strategies for enlivening conferences will be appreciated by your students. The above list of “conversation starters” can be used in a variety of different conferences.

Conferences, first and foremost, are opportunities for you to talk with each student you are responsible for teaching. Traditionally, this sort of individual attention may not have been possible. By organizing your class time efficiently through use of rituals and routines that students help to create and understand, you can begin to have these individual conversations through conferring. This will make an immense difference in the way you teach and the way students learn. See the Rituals, Routines and Artifacts monograph for more information on setting up and maintaining a Readers Workshop.

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l Depending on the number of students you see daily, more frequent conferences or conferences of longer duration may be possible.

l You may not be able to meet with all students in equal proportions of time, some students will need more time and some will need less.

The bottom line for scheduling conferences: be flexible. Though you will need to establish some rituals and routines surrounding conferring, you will also want to be able to adjust conference times as students’ needs change and grow.

Finding Time to ConferSince they are such an important part of the Readers Workshop — documenting, observing, assessing, and propelling student reading progress — conferences should occur regularly throughout the year and whenever they are needed. However, there are some basic guidelines to consider when scheduling them.

l Make sure you have a conference appointment chart located in an easily accessed and prominent place in your classroom.

l Conferences need to be part of the work period in the Readers Workshop (as well as the Writers Workshop).

l Taking a “status of the class/reading,” a method to track students’ independent-reading progress, will give you a quick way to connect with every student in every class on a daily (or weekly) basis. This can be done during independent reading. See the Independent Reading monograph for more information, a sample lesson and directions for using this quick and easy assessment and management tool.

l Depending on your grading cycle and requirements, you should strive to have a conference with every student as often as possible.

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Conferences should be occasions

of exhilarating textual interaction

and engagement as well as a

time for assessment, setting

of goals, reinforcing lessons

taught; they can be times when

you share your knowledge of

texts with students, from the

more fluent readers to those who

struggle with reading.

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20

Types of Reading ConferencesReading conferences can have many different purposes and can help students move toward fulfilling many different goals. Consequently, there are as many types of reading conferences as there are student instructional needs. As you and your students work together through the conferring process you will come up with names and ideas for conferences that fit your collective style. The following are just a few that can help you begin to confer and can help you make conferring a regular part of instruction:

l Getting-to-Know-You Conference (Robb, 1998, 83–84)

l Reading-Strategies Conference

l Build-a-Reading-Life Conference

l Assessment Conference

l Take-Action Conference

l Reading-As-a-Writer Conference

l Small-Group Conference and Strategy Meetings

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As you work through the conferring process over the course of a school year or term, you will notice that you may begin with one purpose in a conference and weave into and out of several others. This is not unusual. Like anything in life that begins with singular categories, you and your students will find that the more you know, the more comfortable you become, the more you practice conferring, the more the boundaries between types of conferences will blend to make the conference experience richer and deeper — even if less distinctly defined. No matter the name you apply to a reading conference, you and your students should be always aware of the ELA standards toward which they should be working. Appendix A offers one approach to organizing information about the standards for students (and you) to refer to in conferences which show how standards relate and how students can work to meet ELA standards through conferring.

Getting-to-Know-You ConferenceOne of the most crucial times for you and your students to confer is the beginning of the year. You will need to get to know your students’ needs, strengths, interests, and weaknesses. In turn, they will need to get to know you as a teacher so that they can work well within the rituals and routines of your classroom.

Consider giving students a survey of their reading habits prior to the conference, so that you have something to review before you begin your first discussion (see Appendix C for a reproducible sample survey). These surveys can include questions such as:

l In what ways do you consider yourself to be a good reader? A not-so-good reader?

l How many books have you read in the last month?

l What are the last two things you read? A book, magazine, newspaper?

l What type of texts do you like to read the most?

l What topics do you like to read about?

l Do you have a favorite author?

l What do you like about that author?

l Does anyone in your family read a lot?

l Do you read more at home or at school?

After you have reviewed the surveys, you will be able to tentatively identify which students may need the most reading instruction.

You may also want to ask students to fill out the reading strategies checklist from the previous section, adding to your knowledge of each student as a reader.

Schedule Getting-to-Know-You Conferences early in the year. Consider meeting with the less-proficient readers first so that you can get them started right away to create and work toward meeting goals. Every student should receive some kind of feedback right away based on the surveys (and/or checklists) so that they know how to begin even before they meet with you to discuss more long-term goals. First conferences may last from 3–5 minutes; you should try to meet with as many of your students as possible in the first week of class so that you can move on to other types of conferences soon thereafter. However, you may find that

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22some students will require more than a short, or more than one, Getting-to-Know-You Conference. Arrange your schedule so that you can meet with all students at least once, then make accommodations for students with whom you may need to confer again.

The Getting-to-Know-You Conference can set the tone for future interactions. Be positive about some of the good things you noticed on the survey (and/or checklist). Begin to offer suggestions for reading materials and strategies you think the student might want to consider using immediately. Ask follow-up questions that show you understand and appreciate what the student wrote in the survey (or checked off on the list). Help students see the skills they possess and what might be appropriate goals that will benefit their reading lives the most. The following are sample questions and comments for this type of conference:

l I noticed that you said you really like mysteries. What mysteries have you read? Have you ever read Holes by Louis Sachar?

l You mentioned that your dad reads a lot. What does he read? Do you like to read some of the same things he reads?

l You are good at reading when it is not for school. Why do you think it is hard for you in school? Is it too noisy here? Do you get nervous reading when other people are around?

l You say you like sports stories. Do you like to read biographies of athletes? Are there any in particular you are really interested in?

l Why do you think you only like to read magazines? Do you read them cover to cover, or do you select certain articles? What are your favorite magazines? What features of those magazines are your favorites?

These conferences can be most useful at the beginning of the year; however, they can and should be adapted for continued use throughout the year. There may be times when students radically change over the course of the year; by going back to this kind of conference when it is appropriate, you and your students can re-evaluate how they are changing and where they may be headed as readers.

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One of the most crucial times for

you and your students to confer

is the beginning of the year.

Reading-Strategies ConferenceYou will likely schedule a good deal of these conferences throughout the Readers Workshop. In these conferences, readers are assisted less in the contexts and purposes for reading and more in the strategies associated with making sense of the text, be it sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, or verse by verse. Generally speaking, the Reading-Strategies Conference attends to everything that is part of and surrounds the seven habits of proficient readers.7

To help you conduct effective conferences, you should know some basics about the strategies/habits of proficient readers. (See the Fluency and Comprehension monograph for a more detailed discussion of each strategy/habit.) In Mosaic of Thought, Ellin Keene and Susan Zimmerman synthesize the work of many scholars to describe some of the cognitive strategies of proficient readers. This is summarized below:

l Activating relevant, prior knowledge (schema) before, during and after reading text:

Proficient readers “use prior knowledge to evaluate the adequacy of the model of meaning they have developed” and to store newly learned information with other related memories.8

l Determining the most important ideas and themes in a text9:

Proficient readers use their conclusions about important ideas to focus their reading and to exclude peripheral or unimportant details from memory.

l Asking questions of themselves, the authors, and the texts they read10:

Proficient readers use their questions to clarify and to focus their reading.

l Creating visual and other sensory images from text during and after reading:

These images may include visual, auditory and other sensory connections to the text. Proficient readers use these images to deepen their understanding of the text.

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7 These seven habits are frequently referred to as strategies. They are indeed strategies. The hope for students is that these comprehension strategies become habitual so that they may always have ways of comprehending text throughout their lives. The terms, habits and strategies are used interchangeably in this monograph and when referring to this topic. 8 From Pearson, et al. , 1992; Gordon and Pearson, 1983; Hansen, 1981. 9 From Afflerbach and Johnston, 1986; Baumann, 1986; Tierney and Cunningham, 1984; Winograd and Bridge, 1986. 10 From Andre and Anderson, 1979; Brown and Palinscar, 1985.

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24l Drawing inferences from text:

Proficient readers use their prior knowledge (schema) and textual information to draw conclusions, make critical judgements and form unique interpretations from text. Inferences may occur in the form of conclusions, predictions or new ideas.11

l Retelling or synthesizing what they have read12:

Proficient readers attend to the most important information and to the clarity of the synthesis itself. Readers synthesize in order to better understand what they have read.13

l Utilizing a variety of fix-up strategies to repair comprehension when it breaks down:

Proficient readers select appropriate fix-up strategies…to best solve a given problem in a given reading situation (i.e., skip ahead or re-read, use the context and syntax, sound it out). (Keene and Zimmerman 1997, 22–3)

Watch how student readers employ or do not employ these habits as you observe them reading. Knowing that these strategies are essential to the progress of fluent readers should inform the teaching steps you take with any particular student.

For example, if a reader often moves through mistakes, ignoring certain parts of the text (which in turn often leads to general misunderstandings of the text) then you may decide the student needs support in learning to self-monitor and self-correct (monitoring for meaning and using fix-up strategies). The reader needs to self-monitor comprehension and learn to stop when comprehension breaks down, when the text stops making sense.

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The Seven Habits of Proficient Readers• Activating prior or background knowledge

• Determining importance

• Asking questions

• Visualizing

• Inferring

• Retelling, summarizing, synthesizing

• Using fix-up strategies

11 From Anderson and Pearson, 1984. 12 This particular strategy is discussed in more detail in the Fluency and Comprehension monograph as a progressive and recursive process of interacting with text: retelling, summarizing, synthesizing. 13 From Brown, et al. , 1983.

In this instance, you might demonstrate for the reader what it looks and sounds like (by thinking aloud) when a proficient reader starts reading something and realizes it does not make sense. Read a passage aloud, then stop and talk to the student about how and where you got confused (thinking aloud) and how the parts of the story do not seem to fit together for you. Then, model re-reading as a way to repair your understanding of the text — and reading more slowly.

Afterwards, suggest that the reader try the same thing. You might stay with the reader to act as a coach until the same situation arises — you will be there to help immediately if there is a breakdown. When conferring with students about strategies/habits of reading, you will continually refer to your knowledge of what proficient readers do and compare those habits with what the reader is doing already. However, you will also want to keep students comfortable and feeling safe. By pointing out what is right before noting what needs to be accomplished you can help students build their confidence as readers.

For instance, you may ask students to try a new strategy to help them focus their thinking on developing a certain aspect of their reading process. In order to help students focus on comprehending a book’s basic plot, you might ask them to stop and talk with a partner at the end of every few pages about what has happened in the story in that section. They may simply practice retelling or summarizing that section, or they may work on predicting and confirming or adjusting by making educated guesses about what might happen next and then discussing why they might have missed a clue or guessed correctly.

If, instead, students would best be served by focusing on text-to-text connections, consider asking them to review two books side by side that they have already read on the same topic, placing sticky-notes in the places where the texts seem to connect to each other or seem to offer new perspectives on the same issues.

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26Students working on a reading

response might be prompted to ask themselves if the book has a particular message: What is this book saying? Who is saying it? Who benefits from saying it that way? In these cases, and many others, you should demonstrate the way that the new strategy works before students apply it themselves. You may choose to introduce new strategies in whole-group and small-group lessons. In Reading-Strategy Conferences, you can repeat the lesson or reinforce what has already been taught. You may need to repeat demonstrations until students are able to use the strategies effectively on their own.

Some generative questions (such as those listed below) for the Reading-Strategies Conference can foster conversation leading to a deeper understanding of what each student’s instructional needs may be:

l What new things have you tried in your reading lately?

l Are there any parts of this book that you can connect to your life?

l Are there events in the text that you can connect to the world?

l What do you think is going to happen next in the book? Why?

l How would you compare this book with other books you have read by this author or on the same topic?

l What genre would you classify this book?

l Are there writing strategies the author uses which you find interesting or difficult to understand?

If you discover that a student cannot answer a question well or at all, you will know the student needs a new or better strategy to understand how to approach a text. The kinds of questions you ask and the kinds of questions students bring to you will help direct the conference and help you both understand what action needs to be taken, what instruction must be given.

One way to jump-start this sort of conference is to have students fill out a brief checklist of the ways they are approaching texts. Their responses/ checks will help you quickly evaluate what instruction a student may require to improve their reading. Laura Robb, in Teaching Reading in Middle School advocates the following items be on such a checklist:

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A Reading-Strategy Checklist:l Before Reading

■ I think about the cover, title and what I know about the topic and make connections to my prior knowledge.

■ I skim, looking at and thinking about illustrations, photos, graphs, fonts, genres, and charts.

■ I read headings and captions.

■ I read the back cover and/or information on the inside of the jacket (such as the author’s biographical information or story synopsis).

■ I evaluate the book to see if it is just right for me.

■ I ask questions.

■ I make predictions.

l During Reading

■ I make mental pictures, visualizing what is going on in the text.

■ I identify confusing parts and re-read them.

■ I use pictures, graphs and charts to understand confusing parts.

■ I identify unfamiliar words and use context clues to figure out their meanings.

■ I stop and retell to see what I remember. If necessary, I re-read.

■ I make connections to myself, other texts or real life.

■ I make inferences and identify parts of the text that support my inference.

■ I predict and adjust or confirm.

■ I raise questions and read on to discover answers.

■ I write down a difficult word, the page number and find help.

■ I think about the text structure.

■ I use fix-up strategies when I find my comprehension has been interrupted.

l After Reading

■ I think about the characters, settings, events, or new information.

■ I discuss or write about my response to a text.

■ I re-read parts I liked.

■ I skim to find additional details.

■ I re-read to find support for questions. (adapted from Robb 2000, 102)

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For a reproducible copy of this checklist, please see Appendix D.

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28You may find that this checklist

will be a helpful tool for discussing students’ reading processes throughout the year. You may decide to amend the above list to more explicitly include the habits of proficient readers to more clearly assess what students need. You may want to ask students to fill out this checklist a few times a year or term. As the year or term progresses and students’ reading processes become more sophisticated, you will want to work with the class to revise the checklist to better reflect your students’ growth as readers.

Build-a-Reading-Life ConferenceTeaching reading is not just about teaching students how to read the print of texts; it is also about teaching students how reading is and should always be a part of their daily routine, inside and outside the classroom. You can help students learn how reading can help them make sense of, change and enrich their lives. Sometimes the focus of a reading conference is about helping students use reading to help themselves become more confident and powerful learners, to gain more information and experience, and to acquire a deeper appreciation of written communication, of text.

Conferences in this category can focus on helping students create reading goals for themselves such as reading all the works of a favorite author or finding nonfiction books on a topic of particular interest. A goal might also be to try new genres or new levels of difficulty, or a goal can be simply to try reading for longer periods of time. Sometimes students might want to focus on learning which kinds of books, newspapers or magazines they tend to enjoy and which they do not. Their goal for building a reading life might be to sample as many different texts in various genres as possible. You will always want to direct students to the reading standards while you are encouraging them to read widely and deeply. The following are standards you may help students work toward in these conferences:

l Middle school ELA standards for reading: E1a, E1b, E1c, E1d, E1e

l High school ELA standards for reading and for reading functional and public documents: E1a, E1b, E1c, E6a, E7a14

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14 See the New Standards Performance Standards for detailed explanations of each of these reading standards for middle and high school.

Some conferences involve helping students with the circumstances surrounding their reading. This might mean brainstorming with them about finding quiet places in their living quarters for reading books. It might mean helping them schedule a time in their lives for their reading or looking over a map with them to find the library or bookstore nearest their house. Sometimes, in these kinds of conferences, students discuss ways of managing different kinds of reading in their lives, different books for different classes, or reading involved in their jobs or home lives.

Helping students use and enjoy reading often involves bringing people together around books. Conferences may involve helping students make plans to read with someone, perhaps a grandparent, a friend or a classmate. Sometimes students plan to read the same text someone else has read in order to talk about it. For example, a student might read the sports section of the newspaper to have a conversation with a parent or sibling or friend. A reader might also read a text that has been in the news in order to be able to understand and discuss it with friends or relatives. Through these conferences you can help students plan such reading activities.

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Some questions you might ask to help students with continued goal setting include:

• After reading a certain number of books on a particular topic, has your interest changed or shifted in any way? Do you still want to read more about this topic? Has reading about this topic increased your interest in any related topics?

• After reading a book by a certain author, do you want to continue reading all of his or her books?

• You seem to be moving very quickly through a series of books or books by a certain author. Do you think you are ready for something more challenging?

• You have tried reading outside, in the library and in your bedroom. Where do you enjoy reading most? Where do you get the most effective reading done?

• Whose recommendations for reading do you seem to agree with the most? Is there any possibility for you to form a reading relationship with that person?

• How has your reading goals aligned with the reading standards? Do you see some gaps in your reading plans? If so, what do you propose would be the best action to ensure you are working toward meeting standards for reading?

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30Consider scheduling conferences

about how students can build reading lives as early in the year as possible (after or in combination with the Getting-to-Know-You Conferences) in order to get students started working on long-term goals and projects that include reading outside, as well as inside, the classroom. Periodically throughout the year, come back to this kind of conference to support students as they move toward their goals, re-evaluate their goals, or make new goals. Be prepared for students to request these conferences as they meet their goals and are eager to set new objectives in their reading lives.

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Assessment ConferenceThe Assessment Conference is essential if assessment is to determine instruction. They not only allow you to take note of the students’ progress in reading (and how they are working to meet standards), but they also help students begin to learn the habits of being reflective, productive, proficient readers because this conference is a time to talk about reading and to practice reading. And because assessment will drive subsequent instruction, students will be able to make the valuable connection between assessment and what they need to learn. These conferences should be employed to delve into students’ reading behaviors and abilities so that instruction can meet individual and/or small-group needs. The Assessment Conference produces the knowledge you need to help students learn to become even more proficient readers. Assessment will also assist you in the compilation of small instructional groups so that more than one student at a time can receive appropriate and needed direct instruction. Reading habits can be changed, improved upon and expanded upon to fit with a reader’s flourishing skills, needs and hopes in reading, when you know how to help.

Conferences in which you and the students make assessments of their reading behaviors, habits, strategies used, skills attained need not happen only when texts are completed or near the end of a grading term. In fact, an Assessment Conference should occur early and often throughout the year or term to determine what types of goals to set. Most importantly, these conferences will lead you to determine what types of instructional approaches are most appropriate.

At the beginning of the year, you should conduct individual conferences with all students as often as possible to assess their level of reading, their reading strengths and weaknesses.

In an Assessment Conference, you will keep detailed records that indicate any reading strategies the student already uses routinely and note reading-strategies you think would be helpful to the student and that would help a student improve a specific aspect of reading or improve overall reading. You may choose to go back to the reading-strategies checklist and reading survey to help you begin assessment. You should record all conference notes in the Teacher Assessment Notebook. Students should record information in their Student Assessment Notebooks so they can refer back to important instruction they have received, to remind them of what they learned, and to help reinforce forward progress in reading and learning about reading.

You will also want to assess all students’ comprehension of a particular text on occasion. Questions and prompts to begin discussion and assessment of this nature with students can include the following:

l What do you know about the story’s plot or the article’s argument?

l Tell me what has happened so far in the book you are reading.

l Do you think you have reached the climax of the story yet?

l Tell me some specific characteristics of a few characters.

l Do you feel comfortable with the genre? What kinds of features do you see in the book that fit what you know about the genre?

l What other genres have you tried?

l Tell me what reading strategies you have applied to reading this book which have lead you to better comprehension. Please include some specific examples of misunderstanding and how you overcame that.

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32These questions/requests are

sometimes easier to ask and answer in the midst of a student’s reading of a particular text rather than at the end of the reading, both for you and the reader. And if you have a set of questions you know you want students to be thinking about prior to an Assessment Conference, you may decide to share specific questions or discussion points you would like to review, so students can be responsible to the conference experience by coming prepared.

Certainly, some questions will be specific to a reader and will not be generically asked to all members of the class. For instance, if a student displays negative behaviors regarding reading, you may need to take some conference time to assess why those behaviors are occurring. You may want to ask:

l Do you think the books you have been reading are too difficult?

l Is there too much unfamiliar vocabulary?

l Is there something happening in the your life that is distracting you from the reading?

When you discover the cause for unproductive behavior, then you can try to support conditions to alleviate the difficulties or make suggestions for change.

Other questions, however, may be general enough so that every student may be expected to answer them. You may want to ask students to answer questions such as:

l What progress have you made toward your reading goals?

l What has been your best reading experience lately and why?

l What problems have you encountered in reading this text?

Students should be reflecting on their progress regularly, so asking them to reflect on their growth as readers can become a routine part of any Assessment Conference.

You will also need to assess students’ reading speed, accuracy and expression — fluency. One measure of reading ability is the assessment of reading fluency. You may find this is a useful measure to assess the sort of instruction students need to become more fluent or more proficient.

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It can be helpful for you to assess all students for level of fluency as you will want all students to improve in fluency whenever possible. Students who are sufficiently fluent, may not need explicit instruction, but students who lack grade-level fluency may need additional assessment and will certainly need further instruction. Determining the sort of instruction a student who struggles with reading needs may be something best accomplished by a team of teachers and reading specialists. The first way to catch students who need extra instruction can be through a simple

measure of fluency. (See the Fluency and Comprehension monograph for a more thorough treatment of fluency and comprehension.)

To read fluently, readers must read with:

l Speed (pace)

l Accuracy (quick word recognition)

l Expression (pitch, stress and phrasing)

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Calculating Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM)16

• Select two or three brief passages from a grade-level text or other grade-level materials. Be sure to stay away from passages that are heavy with dialogue.

• Have individual students read each passage aloud for exactly one minute. This means that students may be reading two or three passages per evaluation session, or you could break down the work by having a student read one passage per session until you had met with each student two or three times.

• After a student has read all the passages you want to use for assessment, count the total number of words the student read for each passage. Figure out the average number of words the student read per minute.

• Count the number of errors the student made on each passage. Calculate the average number of errors per minute.

• Subtract the average number of errors read per minute from the average number of words read correctly per minute. The result is the average number WCPM.

• Repeat the procedure several times throughout the year. Graphing students’ WCPM during the course of the year will show their fluency growth.

• Compare each students’ results with published norms or standards to see whether your students are making appropriate progress in their fluency. See the chart on page 35 for one set of rates. Your school, district or state may have published norms you can refer to as you assess and chart students’ fluency.

16 WCPM, words correct per minute — a combination of accuracy and rate — is also known as ORF, or oral reading fluency (Hasbrouck and Tindal 1992, 41).

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34However, fluency is not a stage

readers can reach permanently with all texts. When readers encounter a new text full of unfamiliar words or on an unfamiliar topic, they will again need to build their fluency by reading and re-reading. Fluency is fostered by practice in reading. And once students possess the tools to understand what fluency is and how to improve theirs, they will be able to tackle new and unfamiliar text without distress.

The best way to assess fluency is to listen to your students read. When you determine that there is a need for explicit instruction in fluency (speed, accuracy or expression), you may address those needs in whole-class groups, small groups or individually as needed.

Assessment for fluency can be as simple as counting the words a student reads correctly over the course of one minute. The chart on page 33 is one method.

You can also time students’ silent reading to assess reading rate, one aspect of fluency. A timed silent reading, though, must result in adequate comprehension (checked by written or oral means). See the chart for developmental rates for silent reading for various grade levels.

Help students select short, interesting, accessible passages (100–300 words) that do not present word recognition difficulties. Commercially prepared texts useful for timed readings are readily available. However, it is important to examine each passage before using it to make sure the text is coherent, organized and readable. You can also prepare texts yourself.

l Have students read one passage silently.

l Signal increments of time passing (every 15 seconds or so) by making a mark on the board or by some other signal.

l Instruct students to calculate and record their reading rate.

l Have students do a comprehension check. This check can consist of a multiple-choice test, a written or oral summary or a discussion of the content (if everyone in the group reads the same passage), followed by a self-assessment rating.

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l A composite score for each reading can be determined through using the comprehension score as a counterbalance for the rate score.

l Students should chart their comprehension performance next to their reading rate for the passage.

l Repeat the procedure periodically.

Like any assessment, students should record the information in their Student Assessment Notebooks. You will record fluency assessment information in your Teacher Assessment Notebook.

Instruction for improving fluency — once you have assessed students’ fluency rates and determined which students might need further assessment or additional instruction — can take a variety of forms. You may choose a number of methods for helping students improve their fluency and a number of forums: small-group conferences, individual conferences, and whole-group instruction. The following

are possible approaches for teaching fluency:

l Repeated reading

l Choral reading

l Echo reading

l Phrase reading

l Karaoke singing

l Reader’s theater

Oral and Silent Reading Rates (Words Per Minute)

Grade Level Silent OralSecond Grade 70–100 66–104 Third Grade 95–130 86–124 Fourth Grade 120–170 95–130 Fifth Grade 160–210 108–140 Sixth Grade 180–230 112–145Seventh Grade 180–240 122–155 Eighth Grade 195–240 136–167 Ninth Grade 215–260 150+ Twelfth Grade 225–260 150+

(adapted from Taylor, Harris, Pearson, and Garcia 1995; Barr, Blachowicz, and Wogman-Sadow l995)

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36you may allow readers to explore how a text can lead them to change themselves, their views or their lives.

It may be that after reading a book about a persecuted youth, a student feels moved to befriend someone similarly tormented. Perhaps a poem might make a student wish to write a letter to a grandparent about a life-changing moment in the past. Some students read nonfiction about endangered animals and decide to launch education campaigns to help preserve certain species. At other times, the changes instigated by texts are not so concrete, but instead they are subtle reminders, perhaps to be open-minded or to learn to take chances occasionally.

In the conference setting, you are in a unique position to create and support these moments of interaction between readers and texts that can spark action. When students feel inspired by something they have read, they are more likely to take action, inspire others to action or join in the action of others. You can help students to process such responses by asking:

l How do you feel about what you read?

l Do you think the situation or issue you read about affects your life in any way?

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See the Fluency and Comprehension monograph for detailed information on explicit fluency instruction.

For students who may require more detailed or in-depth assessment, please consult the secondary reading specialist at your school or in your district and see additional monographs in the series for further information.17

Take-Action ConferenceLike many conference possibilities, this one can be an optional conference for your class. Whether this is appropriate for your grade level or particular students, you are best equipped to decide.

Good reading is rarely a passive experience. Proficient readers often think hard about what they have read and learned. Great writing can often help readers to challenge or change ideas they have held, help them to become open to new possibilities.

Many texts — nonfiction, fiction, magazines, newspapers, poetry, and prose — contain stories, images and information that can truly effect change in a reader’s life. Sometimes a piece of writing moves a reader to take a particular action: social, political or personal. In some reading conferences,

17 You may also be interested in learning more about the Ramp-Up to Literacy courses available at www. ncee. org.

l A2 Communication Tools and Techniques

l A3 Information Tools and Techniques

l A4 Learning and Self-Management Tools and Techniques

l A5 Tools and Techniques for Working with Others

Reading-As-a-Writer ConferenceThese conferences focus first on the reading instruction students need to become more proficient readers by focusing on issues of writer’s craft to better understand genre, text structure and characteristics of text. These conferences can also be about how students can improve the ways they approach books as readers to inform their writing lives.

The line separating a reading and writing conference can become blurred and sometimes should be purposely blurred. Your flexibility in reading and writing conferences will help you note and address immediate issues relevant to students’ instructional needs. There

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l How do you think others feel about this? Have you ever heard family members or friends talking about the issue?

l You can share your enthusiasm for a student’s interest in taking action by saying things such as:

◆ What a great idea!

◆ You could write the editor a letter if you feel that way!

◆ See if you can make that happen!

Offering your support for writing a letter or taking action is another way to show students how ideas and action can come from reading and can inspire others. Conferences like these are the ones that help readers feel their thoughts and their reactions to reading matter and that reading has a purpose in the world outside the classroom.

These are the conferences where you can help students find ways to take action that helps them work toward meeting the applied learning standards such as:

l A1 Problem Solving which includes:

◆ A1a Design a Product, Service or System;

◆ A1b Improve a System; and

◆ A1c Plan and Organize an Event or Activity.

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38There are three kinds of foci for

a Reading-As-a-Writer Conference, however, you and your students may come up with more kinds of these conferences and name them according to your preferences: text structures, genres, and characteristics of texts.

Text structures are like road maps that help readers navigate the way a text plays out or help a reader understand the topography of a text, so to speak. Frequently this navigational information is only complete after the trip has been taken, but understanding text structure possibilities can help students comprehend as they read. For instance, knowing how to determine if a narrative is a story within a story can help a reader better understand the story lines, and thus, better comprehend the text. Text structure can help a reader understand more deeply something they read and can be a useful tool for writers trying to decide how to structure a text. Genres are different types of writing such as: science fiction, mystery, novel, poem — there is almost a limitlessness inherent in defining genre as a kind of writing. By labeling a few key genres (such as the genres dictated by the standards), students can truly work toward meeting the

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are inherent connections that you can help students become aware of through conferring:

Reading and writing require knowledge

of many of the same features of written

language,18 such as letter sound

relations, print format, vocabulary, and

syntax; and, they depend upon many of

the same cognitive processes,19 including

purpose-setting, self-awareness of

success, use of different sources of

information, and so on. Instruction should

emphasize, and take advantage of, the

knowledge and process sharing that can

take place across reading and writing.

(Shanahan 1990, 8)

By getting students to confer about texts as readers and writers, you are helping them make connections between reading and writing, and these conferences can be useful for showing students the connections between reading and writing.

The line separating a reading

and writing conference can

become blurred and sometimes

should be purposely blurred.

18 From Shanahan and Lomax, 1988. 19 From Birnbaum 1992; Langer 1996; Tierney and Pearson 1983.

Each of these three ways of thinking and talking about texts/books (text structure, genre, characteristics of texts) will necessarily overlap with each other in conferences and when students are reading. Characteristics of texts in informational materials may be part of what defines that genre. Text structure in a mystery novel is certainly related to the definition of that genre. Plot, as a characteristic of text, would be connected to text structure in some way in the genre of mystery. The point of pulling apart these aspects of reading is to help students think more deeply about the way a text is all put together and how that knowledge can help them improve as readers and as writers. To understand more about how this sort of conference can blend reading and writing and help students work toward meeting standards in reading and writing (and more), please see Appendix A. (This appendix includes tables that show the interrelation of the ELA standards for middle and high school). The Reading-As-a-Writer Conference can be a most productive time for you to reinforce for students the important relationship between reading and writing and the vital role the standards play in helping all students become more literate and sophisticated readers and writers.

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standards. By understanding some features of a few genres, a reader can establish some expectations prior to reading which can help deepen and improve comprehension. A writer who knows the features of several genres has more options for composing an appropriate piece of text which best suits a given purpose and audience. A most important point to remember is that by reading and writing in the same genre — at the same time — students will have the best chance of improving their reading and writing skills. For examples of this curriculum in action see the America’s Choice author and genre series and the author and genre studies in the ramp-up courses. Characteristics of texts refers to elements within texts — often referred to as elements of fiction or elements of nonfiction — such as: setting, plot, characterization, themes such as conflict or redemption, motifs, interior monologues, visual (font, graphics), audience, purpose, etc. Students who can “read” the characteristics of texts can better understand how these characteristics function in a text and will be able to incorporate appropriate characteristics in their writing when necessary or when desired.

ReadingConferences

40Small-Group Conference and Strategy MeetingsSmall-group conferences can be a powerful way to give direct instruction to students. Small groups can be as small as two partners who wish to read the same book or can be larger groups, up to eight students. These conferences can address the needs of an established book discussion group, an established book club, a group of students who all need particular strategy lessons, or a group of students who wish to form a book discussion group or book club.

All of the conference purposes mentioned so far may also drive small-group conferences. However, there is more that can be accomplished in small-group conferences. The following items are not a comprehensive list but a sampling of what is possible in a small-group conference:

l Expand explicit instruction in comprehension.

l Practice fluency together.

l Introduce students to new genres and authors.

l Introduce additional ways of responding to text.

l Model and practice polite and respectful conversation with book discussion groups.

l Demonstrate prompting for reading partners.

l Discuss the habits of good readers.

l Review lessons relevant to the group.

l Review and expand on reading strategies or responses from literary letters (See the Independent Reading monograph for more on using literary letters to help monitor student reading progress and interests.)

To facilitate small-group conferences, be sure to model how a small-group conference might work in front of the class in much the same way that you model book discussion groups through a fishbowl (see the Book Discussion monograph for more details on using this instructional approach to model appropriate small-group behavior).

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To begin a small-group conference, gather the group around a table or in a circle of chairs. Have students bring materials they will need, such as their Reader’s Notebooks and Student Assessment Notebooks. After you pull students together, you will want to explain to them why they are conferring with you (unless they requested the conference). For instance you might say something like:

I have asked you all to confer with me

today because I have noticed you all

have been reading narrative texts. Today,

I want to talk about some common

genre features of nonfiction with you

and suggest some ways to approach

nonfiction and perhaps talk about some

titles that might be interesting to you.

After our work today, I want each of you

to find and try reading a nonfiction book

during independent reading sometime

this week.

You may also choose to teach (or re-teach) a comprehension strategy (or a habit of a proficient reader) more explicitly or practice fluency with a small group. Conferences with these foci can expand upon what is covered in other small-group reading instruction. In a conference, you can talk directly and extensively about

a strategy, with or without specific text, as some students may need more support or additional explanation. You may also use the small-group conference to check on the effectiveness of a small-group reading instruction session. As well, you may find a group of students particularly need practice in fluency. If this is the case, schedule a small-group conference to practice reading chorally so students can improve intonation and phrasing. You may model the reading first, students can repeat the reading orally with you, then they can attempt to read chorally on their own. Or you may all just read along as a group through a piece.

In a small-group conference you may choose to observe a book discussion group working together to help facilitate more productive, more in-depth talk about texts. For instance, with a book discussion group, you may want to use the conference as time to observe a specific discussion. After observing for a short amount of time, offer them a new strategy for approaching the text that will allow them to go deeper into their discussion and improve comprehension. When appropriate, instead of observing,

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ReadingConferences

42you might use the conference to ask questions about the text and their understanding of it. You may want to ask something like the following: What have you learned about the text from talking to your peers that you did not notice or think about when you read on your own? This questioning approach will remind students of

the purpose of the book discussion groups, will allow you to monitor the effectiveness of a group and will stimulate longer-term comprehension.

You may also wish to confer with an individual and have several students at the conference table or in the area so that others can benefit from the individual’s work with you. For example, if you were working with one student on making text-to-text connections, and another student overheard what you were doing, the second student might be able to contribute to the learning experience by adding an additional perspective. You will, of course, have already set up the conditions under which this kind of small-group conference works so students know how to act and react. Similarly, while conferring with a student struggling to understand the concept of inference, other students might be able to jump in and add to the conversation, making clear to their peer how they might try to make an inference and support that inference with reference to the text under discussion.

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You can use the following list as a guide for small-group conference topics:

• Expand explicit instruction in comprehension.

• Practice fluency together.

• Introduce students to new genres and authors.

• Introduce additional ways of responding to text.

• Model and practice polite and respectful conversation with book discussion groups.

• Demonstrate prompting for reading partners.

• Discuss the habits of good readers.

• Review lessons relevant to the group.

• Review and expand on reading strategies or responses from literary letters.

Conferring with partners will not be dissimilar to conferring with several students in a group, or even with individuals amid a group as just described. This sort of small-group conference is an opportunity to observe the dynamics of student interaction and to evaluate each student’s needs to offer targeted feedback and explicit instruction. For example, when conferring with students who struggle with reading, consider periodically observing the way they read together and watch for each reader’s challenges. This observation may help you develop the focus of direct instruction you offer later in the conference or in future conferences.

As mentioned, you may use small-group conferences to follow up on other small-group reading instruction. If you are working with a group to help them use a strategy more effectively and consistently, you might briefly meet with them in a conference to ask how they have each used the strategy in their independent reading or to suggest that they each try to use the strategy in a new way before the next time they all meet for guided-reading instruction.

A strategy lesson meeting/small-group conference is just what it sounds like: a small-group conference in which a strategy is the focus. You assemble a temporary group of readers to teach a specific reading strategy. These students may read at a range of levels, but what they have in common is that they would all benefit from acquiring or practicing the same strategy. The students bring their own texts, or you choose a text that is particularly useful for helping the students to develop and practice a strategy. You may introduce the book but not as an introduction to the meeting. Instead, the meeting opens with you naming the strategy, teaching and/or demonstrating the strategy and then inviting the students to try the strategy themselves.20

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20 Please see Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis for lists of strategy lessons you could begin using. Eventually, you will find that you will create lessons that will be more specific to your students’ particular need. As a beginning place, this book will give you lots of options.

ReadingConferences

44Some things to remember:

l The meeting can be up to 15 minutes long but can often be much shorter.

l You have decided on a teaching point prior to the meeting. The assessment that drives instruction does not happen during the session but before it.

l You may plan and deliver a series of strategy lessons to a particular group.

l You begin the lesson by making the teaching point explicit.

l After making the teaching point, you model the strategy.

l After modeling the strategy, you watch the students try the strategy, coaching them as they do. You may make additional teaching points based upon what you see students do and what you feel students are capable of attempting.

l Strategy lessons frequently build upon the ones that preceded them.

Observing Reading TeachersEvery teacher can learn from observing other teachers at work. Seeing another teacher’s reading conferences will often give you new ideas for your own conferences. Since, in conferring, teachers are often confronted with similar situations repeatedly, seeing the ways other teachers confer can be interesting and can stimulate new teaching ideas.

More and more secondary schools have reading specialists on staff. You should check with your school and district to determine if there are certified reading specialists you could observe or confer with as you develop your skills in teaching reading.

Observing other teachers at work can also be the basis for conversation about the range of possibilities for conferring with your students. Although the observed conference may not have broken any new ground, fresh ideas can come of processing the conference through a conversation with the teacher afterward. Often, two professionals together can find learning opportunities and teaching paths invisible to one alone. If you do not have the time during the teaching day to observe another teacher or just do not know someone who is comfortable being observed, examples of reading conferences and good teaching can also be found in many professional books, videos and even on some websites.

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The Teacher As ReaderYou may also find a wealth of teaching knowledge can be gained through participating in or observing adult book groups:

Teachers who have participated in adult

reading groups want their students’ talk

about books to be as layered as their own.

They want students to move from content

to craft and back again, to crawl inside a

text to get at literary technique, to re-read

their own writing carefully and borrow

techniques wisely. (Harwayne 1992, 203)

Drawing upon your own experiences in talking about books may make it even easier to support student readers in finding direction and depth in their own literary conversations in the classroom and in their conversations with you during conferences.

By thinking of yourself as a reader and reflecting on your own reading process, you will likely find ways of connecting to students through talk about how you read and write and learn. In conferences, then, you will be able to talk as an authority on your reading life and share what you have learned about what you do as a reader with your students. Self-reflection is vital: “As teachers explore their own reading, writing, and learning, they can better understand students’ strengths and needs because teachers and students share the same [essential] process.” (Robb 2000, 56)

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Drawing upon your own

experiences in talking about books

may make it even easier to support

student readers in finding direction

and depth in their own literary

conversations in the classroom and

in their conversations with you

during conferences.

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46

A Final NoteConferences offer the best opportunity for you and the students in your class to meet one-on-one or in small groups to address reading progress and particular needs. In the conference, you can begin to guide students as they seek to find ways to become more proficient and life-long readers. Your knowledge, combined with their curiosity, will lead to individualized approaches that help each student to grow as readers and learners. Conferring regularly is one way to get to know students and their reading lives, a way to move them toward new avenues in reading and learning. Regular conferring is one way that can help you make your classroom a comfortable and productive place where students can grow into proficient, eager, and hopefully, life long readers and learners.

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Appendix A

The Reading Conference and the Middle and High School ELA StandardsWhile conferring with a student, you will blend many different purposes, or work to meet specific goals, depending on the type of conference. You will always want to keep the standards at the core of all you do. The following chart provides the explicit ways in which standards are connected and explains how you can help students work toward meeting a variety of the ELA standards through conferring. As you work through the following pages, you will want to have your New Standards Performance Standards book available to reference.

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Working to Meet ELA Standards Through Reading Conferences

E1 Reading

E1a25 books3 genres5 books

E2 Writing

E2bResponse to literature

E2cNarrative account

E2a,d,e Possible or E2f Possible for high school

E3 Speaking and Listening

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4 Conventions, Grammar and Usage of the English Language

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5 Literature

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

Scenario: You and a student are conferring to specifically discuss genres (features of a genre, trying a new genre, etc.). By helping a student work toward meeting the E1a standard (by offering genre options for a student), you may also be able to talk about the student’s writing projects as students should be creating the genre or genres in which they are reading. This will be true especially when your class is engaged in a genre study. Simply by participating in a conference with a student, you are providing an opportunity for that student to work toward meeting the E3a standard for Speaking and Listening (if the conference is for a small group, you provide the group with the chance to work toward the E3b standard). If you are talking about the student’s writing as it relates to what the student is reading, you may confer about revision or basic understandings about the rules of English language, thus helping the student work toward meeting either E4a or E4b. By talking about what the student is reading and how to produce a text in that genre, you are inherently touching upon the following standards: E5a and E5b. If you approach the reading conference with flexibility, and if you keep in mind how the other English language arts standards can connect in a reading conference, you have the best opportunity of showing a student the important intersections between reading and writing and of providing every student with powerful strategies for improving both reading and writing skills.

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E1 Reading

E1b4 books1 issue1 author1 genre

E2 Writing

E2bResponse to literature

E2cNarrative account

E2a,d,e Possible or E2f Possible for high school

E3 Speaking and Listening

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4 Conventions, Grammar and Usage of the English Language

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5 Literature

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

Scenario: You schedule a conference with a small group in which students will be looking at characteristics of texts, specifically setting and ways of thinking about setting. Depending on what sort of writing project the students are currently involved in, you could certainly connect to E2b, E2c, E5a, or E5b. If students are working on narrative account (fiction), and if they are reading fictional narrative accounts to try to meet this E1b standard, these connections are easy to make and for students to see. The connections between literature, reading, and writing standards should always be explained explicitly. As well, students should always be aware of how they are working to meet the E3 standards when they confer with you. If you work with a small group in a reading conference, but find that they need to work as a response group for each other’s writing, you deftly switch gears and point out where their work interweaves with E4 standards — intrinsic to the response group work are reading strategies that help improve writing and awareness of writer’s craft (in this case focus on setting). Small groups who form as book discussion groups can easily transform themselves into response groups with your guidance, further blending and blurring the lines between reading and writing activity.

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E1 Reading

E1cInformational materials

E2 Writing

E2bReport Writing

E2f Possible for high school

E3 Speaking and Listening

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4 Conventions, Grammar and Usage of the English Language

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5 Literature

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

Scenario: You and a student arrange for a conference to talk in detail about text structure in a particular author’s informational works. In that conference you may want to connect this discussion of text structure to a particular project the student is writing, such as a report. You may find that your talk of text structure in informational materials can inform how this student composes a report on a topic similar to the one under discussion. Or you may want to emphasize how that author’s text structure in a particular work may help the student organize a particular report regardless of the subject. If the student is reading in a particular genre (informational materials) and responding to that text and trying to produce a text in the same genre, then you can connect to the following standards: E2b, E2a, E5a, and E5b. Again, you help a student or students work to meet the E3a and E3b standards simply by conferring. If you talk at all about where the student is in terms of the report writing project, you may work on E4 standards, or you may prefer to specifically schedule an editing conference in the Writers Workshop. However, if the text structure is the purpose of this conference, conventions of grammar and usage of language may be at the core of how a student should be reading — the student should focus on particulars of writer’s craft as a reader to better comprehend the structure of a text. The benefit to the student as a writer is a better understanding of how to employ particular conventions required of a particular genre. As well, a conference focused on text structure which evolves into a conference on producing a report may also be connected to the following reading standards E1d or E6a (public documents) and E1e or E7 (functional documents), depending on the text structure explored, as well as the audience for and purpose of the report. A report may be purposely focused to be a public document or a functional document.

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E1 Reading

E1d Middle SchoolE6a High School

Public documents

E2 Writing

E2ePersuasive essay

E2f Possible for high school

E3 Speaking and Listening

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4 Conventions, Grammar and Usage of the English Language

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5 Literature

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

Scenario: A student requests a conference with you to discuss the genre of public documents. The student wants to consider ways of connecting the reading of public documents (E1d) with an assignment to write a persuasive essay (E2e). You point out the following connections between E1d and E2e standards. For example:

E1d or E6a Public Documents• Identifies the social context of

the document

• Identifies the author’s purpose and stance

• Analyzes the arguments and positions advanced and the evidence offered in support, or formulates an argument and offers evidence to support it

• Examines or makes use of the appeal of a document to audiences both friendly and hostile to the position presented

• Identifies or uses commonly used persuasive techniques

E2e Persuasive Essay• Engages the reader by establishing a

context, creating a persona, and otherwise developing reader interest

• Develops a controlling idea that makes a clear and knowledgeable judgement

• Includes appropriate information and arguments

• Supports arguments with detailed evidence, citing sources of information as appropriate

• Anticipates and addresses reader concerns and counterarguments

• [Students should be employing commonly used persuasive techniques to fulfill the above items. ]

Scenario, continued: The above explicit connections between the E1d and the E2e standards will help you show students how reading and writing are connected (in this instance). This chart should also help you demonstrate that as students read in a genre, they are learning to become writers of that genre, if they use the standards to improve their reading and writing strategies. You are helping students see explicit connections between reading and writing (and helping them work to meet standards in both). As always, when conferring, you are assisting students to meet the E3 standards for speaking and listening. When the student works on writing the public document, you will confer about text structure and/or characteristics of text to make connections between reading and writing clear on these points as well. And the E4 standards will always be part of every discussion of how language is used for clarity and for effective communication, in any particular genre.

From New Standards Performance Standards, volume 2, © 2001, and volume 3, © 1997, by the National Center on Education and the Economy.

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E1 Reading

E1e Middle SchoolE7a High School

Functional documents

E2 Writing

E2dNarrative procedure

E2f Possible for high school

E3 Speaking and Listening

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4 Conventions, Grammar and Usage of the English Language

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5 Literature

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

Scenario: You and a student confer over a functional document. The student needs to better understand, to improve comprehension, the ways in which the author structured the text. You begin the conference and talk about text structure in which you are help the student understand the E1e standard and how this information can be applied to unraveling the text structure of a functional document. Later, you will ask the student to write a response to this piece (E5a) and produce a text in this genre (E2d, narrative procedure; and E5b). To begin making the connections between standards, you can use the following chart:

E1e or E7a Functional Documents

• Identifies the institutional context of the document

• Identifies the sequence of activities needed to carry out the procedure

• Analyzes or uses the formatting techniques used to make a document user-friendly

• Identifies any information that is either extraneous or missing in terms of audience and purpose or makes effective use of relevant information

E2d Narrative Procedure

• Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a persona, and otherwise developing reader interest

• Provides a guide to action for a relatively complicated procedure in order to anticipate a reader’s needs; creates expectations through predictable structures, for example, headings; and provides transitions between steps

• Makes use of appropriate writing strategies such as creating a visual hierarchy and using white space and graphics as appropriate

• Includes relevant information• Excludes extraneous information• Anticipates problems, mistakes and

misunderstandings that might arise for a reader

Scenario, continued: As you confer with your student, you will want to make the above connections explicit so that as a reader the student can employ appropriate strategies to comprehend the structure of a given functional document. As the student becomes the writer of a narrative procedure, the student will then be able to apply knowledge gained (while reading) of appropriate writer’s craft for this genre — all of which can inform the structure of the student’s work. Once again, simply through conferring, you are helping students meet the E3 standards. By having students read and respond to a functional document and create their own narrative procedure, you are also giving students the opportunity to work toward meeting the E5 standards. E3 standards will become part of the conference conversation as you and the student determine the specific conventions, grammar, and usage of English language which are appropriate to functional documents that can be translate to composing narrative procedure.

Reproducible chart for classroom posting © 2003 NCEE

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E1 Reading

E1A25 books3 genres5 books

E2 Writing

E2bResponse to literature

E2cNarrative account

E2a,d,e Possible or E2f Possible for high school

E3 Speaking and Listening

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4 Conventions, Grammar and Usage of the English Language

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5 Literature

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

Working to Meet Middle and High School ELA Standards Through Reading Conferences

E1b4 books1 issue1 author1 genre

E2bResponse to literature

E2cNarrative account

E2a,d,e Possible or E2f Possible for high school

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

E1cInformational materials

E2bReport Writing

E2f Possible for high school

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

E1d Middle SchoolE6a High School

Public documents

E2ePersuasive essay

E2f Possible for high school

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

E1e Middle SchoolE7a High School

Functional documents

E2dNarrative procedure

E2f Possible for high school

E3aOne-to-one conferences

E3bGroup meetings (small-group conferences/ strategy meetings)

E4aUnderstands rules of English language in written and oral work

E4bRevises own work for clarity

E5aResponse to text

E5bProduces text in one genre

Appendix B

Sample Entries for a Student Assessment Notebook and Teacher Assessment NotebookThe entries below are sample entries made by a teacher for a student during or immediately after a reading conference. The following student entries are examples of how a student might record the substance of a conference.

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Teacher Assessment Notebook

Student Name: Maria P.

9/8: Reading Monster. Likes movies, so wanted to try this script-like novel. Just started — good command of details. Trying text-to-self connections — will try text-to-world (films) next.

9/14: Fluency assessment #1: Read a passage in _________ to assess fluency. WCPM=110, a bit below expected — will do again. A shy reader (aloud) and stumbles a bit on punctuation or skips some. Recommending other Walter Dean Myers books. (Maria reads on the bus!) May be ready for text-to-text connection after another Walter Dean Myers book. May be ready for additional strategies later.

9/18: Finished Monster. Trying another Walter Dean Myers book next, has not decided. Still needs response for Monster. Will check next conference.

10/12: Fluency assessment #2: Read a passage in _________. Better reading this time — seemed less shy and reluctant. WCPM=119. Plan: read more independent- level books to practice fluency and pay attention to punctuation. Will try questioning strategy perhaps. Got Monster response. Attempting two books at once — good for her.

Student Assessment Notebook

Notes from conferences with Mr. L. :

9/8: I am reading Monster. I like it because it is like a movie I can make when I read. Practicing text-to-self connections — sometimes hard because I do not live in a big city like Steve.

9/14: Hated reading out loud, but I really like the stuff I read. Maybe I can read that book next. Working on comparing Monster to TV shows and movies.

9/18: I finished Monster. Mr. L. recommended I try another book by Walter Dean Myers. I am going to try Motown and DiDi next. I also want to read Speak.

10/12: This fluency test was not so awful — I read more correct words per minute. I started reading BOTH! I have never done that before. I love both books. Now I am trying text-to-text connections like crazy. I also need to pay attention to how a sentence is put together, like with periods, commas, quotes and stuff. Mr. L. says this will help me be more fluent — something about the signals authors give readers. Will have to ask.

Appendix C

Sample Reading Survey

Name: __________________________________ Date: _______________________

Use the back if you need more room to write.

What word describes how you feel when you think about reading a book?

_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

Where is your favorite place to read? ______________________________________

How often do you read at home?__________________________________________

What other types of materials do you read besides books?

_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

Why do you enjoy these? ________________________________________________

Do you have a library card? ______________________________________________

How often do you visit the library to checkout books? _______________________

The best book someone ever read to me is __________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

My favorite author is ____________________________________________________

I like to read about ______________________________________________________

I watch TV for ___________ hours a day because ___________________________

The things I am great at as a reader are ____________________________________

To read better I need to work on __________________________________________

Strategies I use to help me read: ___________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

I like to talk/write about books because____________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

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Appendix D

A Reading-Strategy Checklist

l Before Reading

❏ I think about the cover, title and what I know about the topic and make connections to my prior knowledge.

❏ I skim, looking at and thinking about illustrations, photos, graphs, fonts, genres, and charts.

❏ I read headings and captions.

❏ I read the back cover and/or information on the inside of the jacket (such as the author’s biographical information or story synopsis).

❏ I evaluate the book to see if it is just right for me.

❏ I ask questions.

❏ I make predictions.

l During Reading

❏ I make mental pictures, visualizing what is going on in the text.

❏ I identify confusing parts and re-read them.

❏ I use pictures, graphs and charts to understand confusing parts.

❏ I identify unfamiliar words and use context clues to figure out their meanings.

❏ I stop and retell to see what I remember. If necessary, I re-read.

❏ I make connections to myself, other texts or real life.

❏ I make inferences and identify parts of the text that support my inference.

❏ I predict and adjust or confirm.

❏ I raise questions and read on to discover answers.

❏ I write down a difficult word, the page number and find help.

❏ I think about the text structure.

❏ I use fix-up strategies when I find my comprehension has been interrupted.

l After Reading

❏ I think about the characters, settings, events, or new information.

❏ I discuss or write about my response to a text.

❏ I re-read parts I liked.

❏ I skim to find additional details.

❏ I re-read to find support for questions. (adapted from Robb 2000, 102)

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ReferencesAfflerbach, P.P. , and P.H. Johnston.

1986. What do expert readers do when the main idea is not explicit? In J. F. Baumann (Ed.), Teaching Main Idea Comprehension: 49–72. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Allington, R.L. 2001. What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs. New York: Longman.

Anderson, R.C., and P.D. Pearson. 1984. A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading. In PD. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of Reading Research 1: 255–292. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Andre, M.E., and T.H. Anderson. 1970. The development and the evaluation of a self-questioning study technique. Reading Research Quarterly 161: 605–23.

Atwell, N. 1998. In the Middle: New Understandings about Writing, Reading, and Learning with Adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Baumann, J.F. 1986. The direct instruction of main idea comprehension ability. In J. F. Baumann (Ed.), Teaching Main Idea Comprehension: 133–78. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Bomer, R. 1995. Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle and High School. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Brown, A.L., J.D. Day, and E.S. Jones. 1983. The development of plans for summarizing texts. Child Development 54: 968–79.

Brown, A.L., and A.S. Palinscar. 1985. Reciprocal teaching of comprehension strategies: A natural history of one program to enhance learning. [Tech. Rep. No. 334]. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Center for the Study of Reading.

Burke, J. 2000. Reading Reminders: Tools, Tips, and Techniques. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Daniels, H., and M. Bizar. 1998. Methods that Matter: Six Structures for Best Practice Classrooms. York, ME: Stenhouse.

Gordon, C.J., and P.D. Pearson. 1983. The effects of instruction on metacomprehension and inferencing on children’s comprehension abilities. [Tech. Rep. No. 227]. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Center for the Study of Reading.

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Hansen, J. 1981. The effects of inference training and practice on young children’s reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly 16: 391–417.

Harvey, S., and A. Goudvis. 2000. Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Harwayne, S. 1992. Lasting Impressions. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hindley, J. 1996. In the Company of Children. York, ME: Stenhouse.

Hornsby, D. , D. Sukarna, and J. Parry. 1986. Read On: A Conference Approach to Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Keene, E., and S. Zimmermann. 1997. Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Learning Media. 1996. Reading for Life: The Learner as a Reader. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media Limited.

Robb, L. 1998. Easy-to-Manage Reading & Writing Conferences: Practical Ideas for Making Conferences Work. New York: Scholastic.

———. 2000. Teaching Reading in Middle School: A Strategic Approach to Teaching Reading That Improves Comprehension and Thinking. New York: Scholastic.

Schoenbach, R., et. al. 1999. Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Supporting Young Adolescents’ Literacy Learning: A Joint Position Paper of the International Reading Association and National Middle School Association. 2001. http://www. ira.org/ positions/supporting_young_adolesc.html

Tierney, R.J., and J.W. Cuningham. 1984. Research on teaching reading comprehension. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of Reading Research: 609–656. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Winograd, P.N., and C.A. Bridge. 1986. The comprehension of important information in written prose. In J. F. Baumann, (Ed.), Teaching Main Idea Comprehension: 18–48. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

In This Series

Book Discussion Groups

Fluency and Comprehension

Independent Reading

Read-Aloud/Think-Aloud

Reading Conferences

Rituals, Routines and Artifacts

Vocabulary

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