Wednesday, February 2, 2011

CAFE Chapter 4: Conferencing with Children: Principles and Examples

Rethinking Conference Protocols:
  • We must keep in mind that the reason we confer with students is to help them work toward individual goals.
  • I wonder how comfortable all of you are in individual conferencing with students.  What training have you had? What forms do you use?  How do you use that data to guide instruction or interventions?
  • This focus on using the form with today's conference info and conference info for the next time is a great way to build responsibility for the students.  It would be a great tool for the SPED and Title I teachers to use, too, to communicate with the classroom teachers.  Would anyone be willing to share how they "do" this in their classroom?
  • I also loved the visual icons of the pencil, eye, brain, arrow, target, and next sign.
Moving from Conferring to Coaching: A Shift in Thinking
  • I love that concept of moving from an individual conference to a coaching session.  Much more productive!
  • Are any of you using the "Coaching Toward a Target" form?
  • It looks like they take about 4-5 minutes.  That sounds very manageable.  I only wondered at the older grades how you would "see" or "hear" application of a comprehension strategy during their oral reading?  Any ideas?
Seven Elements of Successful Conferences
  • Fair isn't always equal with children.  I think it was Mary that noted how the higher achieving students sometimes don't like that they don't get to have guided reading as often as the others.  How many times do you get to conference with each student in a week's time?  I am guessing once with the proficient and above and twice with the non-proficient?
  • I love the Debbie Miller quote about Hercules. I know how hard it is to manage a literacy block from my own teaching experience.  It takes lots of organization and patience.
  • I have never tried the idea of doing the conference where the child is at.  I always called them to my table.  What works for you?
  • So, my big question is how do you decide what strategy or two to focus on, model, and follow up on with each student?  Do you have a checklist?  Is it in your grade level literacy expectations?  The sky is really the limit in many ways with fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.
  • Coaching is beautiful to watch.  Do you feel like you are coaching or assessing?
  • I like the point about taking the observations from the coaching sessions to fine-tune small group or whole group mini-lessons.
  • The recommendation is for the teacher to see four to five touch points of successful application of a strategy.  Is that feasible or is our scope so wide that we move on before that point?
  • I agree that it would be a relief to not focus on the time during the conference as the format allows for a teacher to really reach each student every few days at the most.

5 comments:

  1. I like conferences with the students. The students like the one and one time. But I find that time is an issue. I need to develope a better time management system. I like the coaching idea. I did some coaching style teaching last week with peer editting and the students seemed to relate better to that approach. I have to say that I feel like I am stumbling at times with conferences. I have not had any training with this approach. I find that I have to teach the students how to conference. Most of my students have difficult stating their strengths and developing a reading and writing goal. I do find that I am not meeting enough with my top students. I like the forms that are intriduced in this chapter. I am not using those forms as of now.

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  2. Conferencing with students is a vital part of the teacher/student relationship, like third graders, kindergartners like the one on one attention. I appreciate the concept of the teacher going to the student for the conference. Last week I conferenced one on one with my students on the floor as they told me which books in their book boxes were to easy. We tried reading "more difficult ones" together before adding them to their box. In kindergarten I can always have developing fluency as a goal for letter naming, letter sounds, phomeme segmenting and reading words. Expanding listening and reading vocabulary is another focus for us in kindergarten.

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  3. @Ann, I am excited to hear you are trying out ideas like conferencing with the students where they "are" in the classroom! You will have to see if that makes a difference over time.

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  4. As a resource teacher I am fortunate that I can listen to my students read almost every day. I introduce strategies, help students practice the strategies, and watch them move forward as readers. Sometimes this takes a long time, but it is a rewarding experience when it finally happens. I can conference with my studfents on a regular basis because of the small group or one-on-one instruction that I can provide. I think it would be a challenging task for classroom teachers to follow the steps in chapter 4 and conference with 25 or more students.

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  5. I enjoy how easy this book is set-up and how easy of a read it is. The seven elements of successful conferences are very well explained. However, I am still trying to figure out how all of this works (in the CAFE book.) How do I have time to conference with all of these students? What are the other first grade students doing that is productive? How do I find enough time outside of the day to get ready for these conferences? It sounds like a great idea. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around trying to figure out the management of it all. It would be so helpful to meet with a teacher(s) who are actually doing this in their classroom.

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