My work with Christy has given me a new perspective on best conferring practices. Together, we brainstormed ways to use conferring as a time to make reading strategies really stick for these brand new readers. To start, we created a document with the main reading strategies that we were looking for. These strategies matched my reading unit, and therefore matched what was expected of my students when they went off to read independently. From there, we conducted “research conferences” during which we observed each student read a level A text. Using our new document we were able to quickly jot which strategies had become automatic, and which needed some more work. The hardest part during our research was to refrain from prompting, especially when I knew that some of my readers were simply being forgetful. Without our guidance, however, we got a very true picture of the work that my young readers do when reading independently without my support.
Independent reading time has taken on a whole new meaning in our kindergarten day. Rather than sending students off and hoping for the best, I know that most of them are using their reading goal to focus and read. I use my data to schedule conferences with my students to continue working on their reading goals in order to make it more natural each day. I now feel more confident truly conferring with readers. Time well spent for everyone!