Can Messy Learning Make A Comeback?
6 months ago
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Informal Reading Conferences
On Thursday when I meet with my 5th grade buddy, she will read from her self- selected book. I will then get a chance to perform an informal reading conference with my buddy. In reading Routman second grade teacher Robin Woods says, " I love the personal structure of a reading conference, since I get to talk with the children about what they have chosen to read. I get to discover how students select books, their reading interests, where they understand text and how and why they don't." (p.101) I have only met with my buddy one time. She read me her writing on a class camp experience. She told me some of the books that she is reading, but I have yet to see her reading. I do know that she is a very good writer. She uses well chosen words and paints a picture by using good descriptive words and phrases. I also know that she is a very good speller and did well on the spelling inventory. So well in fact, that she needs to go to the intermediate level spelling inventory. I believe that this is an indication that she is most likely a good reader too. I am not certain that I will know if she has chosen a "just right" book for her level of reading, especially if the book that she chooses is not familiar to me. Routman says to "flip through the pages and chapter titles, and try to get the gist of the story. When a student knows what's going on, his retelling is full of details, his language makes sense and has a flow, he has an obvious sense of what the books is about and his pleasure is evident."(p.103) As I plan my conference with my reading buddy, I will ask her to bring me a book that she thinks is "just right" for her. I'll ask why she chose the book and what the book is about so far. Then we will read several pages silently together. I will be looking for how fast she reads the pages, and I will be looking for words that might difficult for her. After we finish the pages, I will ask her what she remembers about what we just read. We can then talk about her strengths and set goals to work on for the next week. Some of the goals could be predicting, decoding and understanding difficult words in the text. Also, she could set a goal for when she thinks she will complete the book. By conferencing with students in this way, teachers can monitor their students' progress and set goals that foster high expectations for reading in their classrooms. I believe more importantly that students will have a clearer sense of their own expectations for books that they choose to read and their ability to comprehend what they are reading. I look forward to seeing my buddy this week!
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Hi Cara! I felt compelled to respond to your blog on informal reading conferences since I feel they are sooo critical in helping students evaluate (with you) their direction in reading: their personal reading goals!
ReplyDeleteI, too, appreciated Routman's section on how to talk with students about their reading...a great guideline! On page 106, Routman lists several ideas for goals. This was helpful as we worked with our 5th grade buddies at Juanita. My boy is an outstanding reader, and I was at a bit of a loss for a while when trying to determine what to do with him next. If you're already a good reader--what's there to work on? Well...Routman has some great ideas (Nancy, too!). We need to raise the expectations up when readers are "stalled out." My boy was just AOK with the just-right books he was reading, but I sensed a bit of boredom from him. Reading was not a joyful activity at the time. When creating our reading lesson for my boy, I chose to extend his thinking into author's point of view or perspective. In this way--students also naturally interject their own point of view. I felt like I was accomplishing a couple things with this. I chose also to introduce a genre--poetry--that my boy has not willingly engaged in in the past. I found a poem by the same author of the fiction book he was reading. I have to say it worked out great! My boy was challenged to think more critically about what the poem was about and about why the author wrote such a poem. It was even an eye-opener for me! Those ideas were both from Routman--"try reading in another genre," and "think about why characters act and behave the way they do."
Workign with just one student was surely a luxury...but as you said, meeting one-on-one with students gives us such great insight into their personal connection with reading and helps us form a basis for how we can help them with future goals and furthering their passion for reading!