I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! The hubs and I spent the holiday in New York with my sweet family and it was exactly what I needed to refuel my heart :)
I am so excited about the post today...all about conferring! This morning during our PDR meeting the Language Arts team discussed conferring and how to work with those lower readers (A-D/E) and how to have more meaningful conferences focusing on things other than word work.
Our fabulous instructional coach showed us a webinar by the infamous and amazing Kathy Collins!! I had the opportunity to hear her a couple of times while studying at the Teacher's College at Columbia University in New York over the summer-she is hilariously awkward yet brilliant!!! If you ever have the chance to see her in person {or on a webinar}...DO.IT! She is also the author of two great professional texts, Reading for Real and Growing Readers, both have helped me grow so much as a reading teacher...Kathy Collins just gets it!
Ok...soap box about Kathy Collins done. Moving on...Here is a link to the webinar that we watched this morning...
https://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/writing-tool/
*This webinar is about 45ish minutes long but I promise you it is worth it!!
If you don't have time right now to watch the webinar keep reading and you can read some of the highlights from my notes during the webinar :)
What I loved most about this webinar was it targeted those readers who have read the little books in their book bag a gazillion times...I am the first to admit I need help with those kids!
The topic was all about Re-reading and Re-thinking in the following ways...
-Use a storyteller's voice
-Notice something new
-Talk about the book
-Pay close attention to pictures/study the pictures to figure something out
-Act out the story
In the webinar Kathy Collins also gives conference snippets or scenarios and that really helps me to hear the "lingo" and better apply it when working with my own readers.
I love how the teacher, when approaching a student for a conference, asks WILL YOU pick a book to read with me? That helps give the student that control, great way to start things off!
Then more ingenious stuff...after the student picks the book the teacher says "Good choice! I'm curious...Why did you pick that book out of all of the books in your book bag?" What a great way to hear the reasoning from the student while still giving you, the teacher, the opportunity to better understand and aim your instruction.
And then continuing on with the conference by giving the child choice again..."Great reason! Ok, how do you want to re read this book today? Do you want to re read it ___(insert one way)___ or ___(insert second way)___?" LOVE. Choice to the child, direction from the teacher-YES!
Kathy Collins gives other scenarios/snippets in the webinar if you want to hear more/read more!
Last thing I want to share with ya'll is about the "What might they think or say?" activity...
In the link where you find the webinar, you will also find a link to the think/talk bubbles and these are GREAT for helping students "be" the character and help to give them a voice or mind.
I don't know about you, but in my literacy library we have some great titles for the lower levels but they are the list type books so it is hard to help those books come alive since they don't have dialogue...WELL NOT ANYMORE! Bring on the think/talk bubbles!
It is so easy to make these! You can print out the page from the link (I suggest printing on CARDSTOCK), laminate, and then hot glue them on a popsicle stick. I put the thought bubble on one side and then on the bottom of the other end the talk bubble. Students can then add these to their book bag after you model how to use them the correct way :)
One of the sweet mamas in my class is making FIFTY of them tomorrow for me...bless her!
I am using a level D text called Sandcastles and here is how I used the "talk bubble" with one of my readers today...
I was working with a sweet little girl and we decided to "be" the girl (side note: when I asked her which person she wanted to be in the picture she said..."uh, girl...boys are weird." Oh, of course, sorry, silly me!)
We read the words and then she had to go over and say something that the little girl would say. Just like Kathy Collins said, the little girl tried to narrate instead of "being" the girl. She said "The girl is proud of her sandcastle." So I modeled and said, "OH! So the girl would say 'I am so proud of my big sandcastle!" After modeling that my sweet pea started picking up on it in future pages-YAY...SUCCESS!!
If your reader says something completely unconnected from the text, direct and guide them to use the picture clues to help aim closer to what would actually be said or thought.
I know that was a jam packed post, but again, I can't say enough good things about the webinar. I hope this post and/or the webinar leaves you with something new you learned and plan to try in your classroom!!
Have a great night!!
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