We are so happy that you found our blog on Reading Conferences!
We love it when amazing educators, like you, find us! Before we begin we want to tell you that YOU ARE AMAZING! How do we know? We know you’re amazing because not all educators are out there scouring the web to find new ways to reach their students.
Not all educators see the value in Reading Conferences, but YOU do!
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here!
We can’t wait to share with you the #1 way to grow a Reading Community!
What are Independent Reading Conferences?
You may have heard of Reading Conferences before, but maybe you’re not clear on what they actually are. Reading Conferences are simply a time that a teacher and student can come together and connect over a book. Reading Conferences last anywhere from 5-10 minutes. During this time, students share their thoughts and ideas about their independent reading. While students are independently reading, teachers plop down next to a student where they are, listen to them read a page and then have a conversation about the text they are reading. Teachers should listen to a page read aloud to check for fluency and to guarantee that the book is at an appropriate reading level for the student. The conversation afterwards ensures comprehension and also lets students know that the teacher values both them as a reader and reading itself.
The Types of Reading Conferences
Formal Reading Conferences
There are two types of Reading Conferences that we use in our classrooms… Formal and Informal. Formal conferences happen on a set date. Both the teacher and student know about this date and come prepared. Students come prepared with the materials required, such as their book, conference forms, or assignments, and the teacher comes prepared with their formal notes.
Informal Reading Conferences
Informal conferences are a spur of the moment meeting where the teachers plops down next to a student and starts a conversation about the book the student is reading. The observations during this type of conference can be written down if the teachers learns about anything profound, or these observations can just go into the teacher’s mental bank for the child.
How Often Should Reading Conferences Occur?
The goal of Reading Conferences is to meet with each student on a weekly basis, either formally or informally. We find this very manageable in a class size of 20 students. We, however, have 32 students. Meeting with every student on a weekly basis sounds a little overwhelming, right? Here’s what we do. In our classrooms, we plan to formally confer with each student once every two weeks. That means that, on average, we meet with 3-4 students each day. Since conferences are 5-10 minutes, we spend no more than 30 minutes conferring with our students. This is the perfect amount of time for their Independent Reading time! When we finish early, we pop around and do a few informal conferences when we can. We guarantee that our students will have a Reading Conference once every other week, and they will usually have an informal conference too. Therefore, for every two weeks, each student is getting one formal and one informal Reading Conference. To us, this is very manageable and, trust us… YOU WILL SEE THE EFFECT IT WILL HAVE IN YOUR CLASSROOM!
Reading Conferences with a TWIST!
And now, the moment you have all been waiting for… THE TWIST! Here is how our Reading Conferences are different from all the other Reading Conferences you have seen out there. Our Formal Reading Conferences are STUDENT LED! Student Led Formal Reading Conferences make all the difference! Let your students choose the standard they want to discuss with you! In our classrooms, we have Standards Based Reading Conference forms that each child fills out before their formal conference. Students have a choice between 22 versions. Just so you have an idea, some examples of these are plot, point of view, genre, and theme. When we sit down with a student, we allow students to take the reigns and lead the conference. Our students already have the talking points on their formal Reading Conference form. We sit back and listen to them be the expert on the standard they chose. While we are listening, we take notes on the student as a reader. If you need to keep the conference going, we have a set of question cards that have a list of questions for each standard. We simply turn to the card, pick a question and keep the conference going. If you notice, there was a whole lot of teacher listening and student talking. Teachers need to be an active listener. Be their “equal” during a Reading Conference. Hold back from talking at them and just listen to the reader. You will learn a lot more this way!
Top Teacher Excuses for NOT Conferring About Reading
- Reading Conferences are too much work.
- I don’t have time in my day for Reading Conferences
- I don’t know what to do during a Reading Conference
Did you agree with any of these Top Teacher Excuses? After reading this blog post, we hope that we have helped you with these “excuses.” Here is our advise to you. Reading Conferences sound like a scary topic, but to us, the only thing that is scary is a teacher who does not conduct Reading Conferences. Here is our plea to teachers. Try it. Try Reading Conferences. Start small and watch how good you get! Meet with a student about their Independent Reading. You will discover that you have never known your students better, both personally and as a reader. You will implement an individualized learning plan without even realizing it. Your students will see how much you care about them, along with reading. Your students will be pushed to the next level as a reader.
You will create a Reading Community that loves reading!
Want to do Reading Conferences
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17 Comments
I love the idea of reading conferences! You have given me some great tips on how to get started. Thank you!
Conferences are my struggle reading and writing. Strategies outline in this post seem doable. Exciting resource, thank you for creating it.
always wanted to try but never found an efficient way or time.
I LOVE reading conferences but I struggle to meaningfully meet with each of my students! I find myself rushing to get to everyone and then not actually accomplishing much of anything! I would love to get some ideas from your materials about how to make reading conferences work in my classroom!
I’m a second year teacher and have wanted to start reading conferences but didn’t know how to start or effectively do this, thank you for the awesome resources you create!
Reading conferences are always something I’ve wanted to do, but never been sure how. I’m excited to get started, now.
So excited to give this a try!
If I wasn’t paying for my wedding soon, I’d buy this in a heartbeat! If I don’t win, I’ll buy it for the next school year!
Love this resource to help streamline conferences with students. Thanks!
I finally figured out my time management for my reading block and having book club coaching conferences are my favorite time of my day
I love getting to work with kids one on one. I usually do reading conferences at the beginning of every guided reading group. I see each student about 1 time in 6 days.
I appreciate your ideas.
Enjoyed your blog post very much. Can’t wait to get started with reading conferences.
I love this idea! I would love to get this started with my students. This is my second year teaching and I have sooo much to learn!
This is will help my students become life-long readers! Can’t wait to implement!
The problem I am in is that my students do not have the desire to read at all? Unfortunately, the talk of conferences is still far away
They just haven’t found the right book! We would suggest modeling the love for reading through Read Alouds. That is where we HOOK our readers! We are teaching virtually, so we will still be conferencing with our students about their reading in small groups. How are you going back to school?