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Literacy Unleashed

teachers

What is Your Super Power?

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Teachers are Superheroes

I spend a lot of time with teachers. They are my heroes. Like Clark Kent, when out in public, they look like any other mild-mannered, ordinary individual. But, the classroom serves as their proverbial telephone booth as they slip in and change from that ordinary person into a TEACHER! I have read many books, articles, and research studies analyzing the characteristics and qualities of effective teachers.

Teachers are Superheroes

I have boiled this down into the 6 Super Powers I feel Super Hero Teachers possess:

  1. Passion. The intrinsic, uncontrollable, unending love of learning and the desire to share and pass that passion on to others!
  2. Knowledge. The ability to transform and translate the depth and flexibility of knowledge of craft and content into exciting and interesting learning experiences.
  3. Engagement. The love of teaching and creative learning experiences captures the students’ interest and motivates them to participate, accept challenges, and grow.
  4. Clarity. The ability to create, teach, and model clear, student-centered learning goals that tell the students what they will learn, how they will learn it, and what they will do to show their learning.
  5. Relational. They don’t just like kids; they choose to spend the critical mass of their lives with kids with the goal of inspiring them to be the best they can be!
  6. Reflective. The drive to continuously reflect on their craft and improve their practice to become better!

#11 Why Confer?

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Conferring
Conferring

The "What" and the "Why" of Conferring

We all know and value the importance of all children reading self-selected books for up to 30 minutes every day in a balanced literacy classroom. Independent reading provides the time for students to internalize, through practice and reflection, the learning from whole group and small group classroom experiences. Independent reading also empowers readers. Readers choose what they read and set their purposes for reading. They develop their interests and their reading repertoire. However, independent reading is incomplete if the teacher is not conferring with each child about their reading every week.

The "what" of conferring

Conferring is a regularly scheduled time devoted to meeting one-on-one with each reader to discuss the texts they have chosen and are reading from their book bins. Every text that they have selected tells part of their story. We learn about their interests, their understanding of their own reading abilities, their ability to take risks as readers if interest is high: conferring tells us about who they are as readers and as people.

Effective conferring sessions are:

  • Regular: at least once a week
  • Short: about 5-7 minutes
  • Focused: teachers have identified and clearly communicated the purpose for the session
  • Student Led: teachers use prompts and guiding questions to learn about the student as a reader, learner, and thinker
  • Data Rich: teachers make notes about what they learn about each reader to use for reflection and planning

Conferring requires consistency and dedication. Teachers constantly work to use their instructional time wisely. Strong literacy teachers know the importance of devoting at least 90 minutes every week to conferring because of the richness of the experience for both teacher and reader and the valuable data it provides.

“Conferring is critical to student learning because it provides feedback in an authentic context. It is in the moment. Students want to know that we care about them, not only as learners, but as readers.” (Patrick Allen, 2012)

The "why" of conferring

Conferring is the culmination of the reading process. By engaging with students in rich conversations about their reading, we can shepherd developing readers and writers and provide an authentic context for ongoing assessment and response. Daily reading motivates students and develops their love of reading. Conferring with readers about their choices adds an important layer. When we take time to sit one-on-one with children and ask them about what they are reading, we are placing great value on the process. We show them that this work is important enough for the teacher to learn about what they are doing and why. We engage in a conversation as a fellow reader, a learning partner, who is truly interested in their choices and thinking, asking questions to learn more than what books they are reading. We want to know how that book changed their thinking and their understanding. We want to know them! Reading isn’t just something we do in school, it is part of who we are as learners.

RESOURCES

Allen, P. (2012). Conferring: The Keystone of Reader’s Workshop. New York, NY: Stenhouse.

Boushey, G., & Moser, J. The cafe book: Engaging all students in daily literacy assessment and instruction. New York, NY: Stenhouse.

Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. (2001). Guiding readers and writers (3-6): Teaching, comprehension, genre and content literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

This article is #11 in the twelve-part series, “Getting My Classroom Ready for Balanced Literacy Instruction: Classroom Culture and Environment.”

#10 Independent Reading

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Lifelong reading

A Non-Negotiable Component of Comprehensive Literacy Instruction

The goal of daily independent reading of student self-selected text is to foster wise readers who are self-motivated, self-directed, engaged readers that are critical thinkers, problem solvers, and meaning makers who LOVE to read and choose to read!!!!!

“Children need at least thirty minutes a day to read books they can read, preferably, of their choosing.” (Lucy Calkins, 2001)

What is independent reading?

Independent Reading is the culminating event of the gradual release of responsibility in a literacy classroom. After the teacher explicitly teaches and models skills and strategies for the class, she provides lots of opportunity for students to practice these skills and strategies while reading and discussing instructional level texts with their peers. Students apply this learning while reading texts of their own choosing during their independent reading time. Independent Reading provides time for students to practice and for teachers to talk to students about their reading development.

During independent reading, students

  • Use their book bin as a toolkit to read for enjoyment and to apply the learning from class
  • Read texts they chose and are interested in reading
  • Read texts within their independent through instructional range
  • May occasionally read challenging texts that they are very interested in
  • Respond to their reading digitally or in writing
Lifelong reading

Why is independent reading so critically essential?

Reading has the power to move us to action, to take us to amazing places, to walk in the shoes of others, to learn what has happened in the past, the present and the future. Reading is powerful. Classrooms that value Independent Reading provide opportunities for students to truly engage in texts they want to read for prolonged periods of time and can create a positive, lifelong habit.

Anything we do well requires practice. The more we practice, the more skillful we become. When teachers honor this important time, students realize that reading has great value. Independent reading allows students to make choices, read what they like and develop stamina.

Benefits of independent reading

  • Improved Reading Achievement—the  more you practice, the better you become.
  • Fluency and Automaticity—the ability to decode text automatically while reading comes with practice. Automaticity frees the brain to be able to critically think and make meaning.
  • Increased Vocabulary—the best way to develop a rich vocabulary  is to read.
  • Greater Background Knowledge—the more you read, the more you learn about the world.
  • Increased Motivation, Interest and Engagement—the power of choosing your own reading resources and having the time to enjoy those choices as you develop as a reader brings confidence.

How do students become wise readers?

They READ. They read a lot, every day, books they choose and want to read, as well as texts provided by teachers and parents. They also practice the skills and strategies explicitly taught, modeled, and practiced in their classroom and talk to their teacher and peers about the texts they read.

How do teachers become wise reading teachers?

“I often wonder why people ask for research to support independent reading. Does anybody go to the basketball coach and ask her to provide research to support why players are running plays and practicing shots? Does anyone ask the band director why his musicians are playing their instruments during band class?” (Donalyn Miller, 2015)

We know our partners in the process and provide supports and scaffolds to foster their love of reading by:

  • Establishing a non-negotiable 20-30 minute time every day
  • Build the stamina to read and increase it to 30 minutes
  • Teaching a process for choosing “just right” books
  • Organizing your classroom library to support student self-selection
  • Teaching students strategies for effective self-selection
  • Partnering with students to develop criteria for building and maintaining Book Bins
  • Developing record keeping systems so students know the genres and types of texts they have been reading
  • Conferring regularly with students
  • Using ongoing conferring data review to reflect on instruction and make decisions.

RESOURCES

The International Reading Association’s Position Paper: Leisure Reading: A Joint Statement of the International Reading Association, the Canada Children’s Book Centre, and The National Council of Teachers of English. Available in PDF.

Miller, D. and Moss, B. (2013). No more independent reading without support. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

Moss, B., & Young, T. (2010). Creating lifelong readers through independent reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association

This article is #10 in the twelve-part series, “Getting My Classroom Ready for Balanced Literacy Instruction: Classroom Culture and Environment.”