Conferring
The teachable moment is what we live for - is there anything more magic than reaching a reader or writer with exactly the right words at exactly the right time? We've bottled some of that magic in the resources that follow, with print guidelines and scores of video examples from master teachers.
Latest Content
First-Grade Writing Conference: Celebrations to Suggestions
Katrina Edwards begins her conference with first grader Allen by celebrating all he is doing well in his writing. She highlights his language and details in writing, before moving on to new strategies to try.
Cause and Effect: Conferring with Olivia
Christy Rush-Levine confers with Olivia about the principle of cause and effect in the novel she is reading.
Linking Pictures and Text: Conferring with Ava
Katrina Edwards begins her conference with first grader Ava by having her share what she learned from a picture walk through a simple text, and then she helps her use pictures to decode text while reading.
History Through a Child’s Eyes: Conferring with Omar
Christy Rush-Levine confers with Omar, who is reading The Rock and the River. The book is a fictional account of a tumultuous time in civil rights history, considering protests through a child’s eyes.
A Poem About Lost Friendship: Conferring with Estelle
Estelle shares a poem she has written about lost friendship with her teacher, Katherine Sokolowski. She captures the fickle nature of fifth-grade relationships among girls. Katherine connects the cadence of the writing to the style of The Crossover, and helps Estelle find possibilities for more writing.
Reading Conference: Keeping Track of Characters
Christy Ruth-Levine confers with Edith, who is tracking character changes in the novel Room.
From Title to Theme: Conferring with Jadev
Christy Rush-Levine confers with Jadev about how the title of a book often gives clues to its theme.
Writing Routines: Drafting Autonomy
Justin Stygles questions his conferring routine during writing workshops, and the value of interrupting students early in the drafting process.
Understanding War: Conferring with Cam
Christy Rush-Levine confers with Cam, an eighth grader who seeks to understand the complexity of war through the experiences of main characters in novels.
Conferring Notes
When it comes to conferring notes, form needs to follow function. Dana Murphy quit looking for the perfect template, and started focusing on what kinds of notes are most helpful.
Conference Records That Stay with Kids
Ruth Ayres explains why conferring records that stay with kids are the most useful for teachers.
Conferring: Establishing a Setting in a Novel
In this week's video, Aimee Buckner has a quick conference with a fourth grader about ways to solve a dilemma — how to figure out the setting in a historical fiction novel when there are no pictures.
Building a Next-Read Nonfiction Stack
Katherine Sokolowski helps fifth grader Jack build a next-read stack of nonfiction, highlighting a variety of text features and historical references.
Peer Support in Writing Workshop: Conferring with Jaden
Christy Rush-Levine meets with eighth grader Jaden, who talks through his struggles in writing a conclusion to his literary analysis, and how his peers helped him improve the writing.
Close Attention and Reading Response: Conferring with Tori
Christy Rush-Levine confers with eighth grader Tori about her reading response to Why We Broke Up. She encourages Tori to make connections between the characters in her current book and her previous reading by paying close attention to surprising action.
First-Grade Conference: Stretching Writing
Katrina Edwards helps her adorable first-grade student Dylan stretch out his writing. He adds details by first talking about playing with friends near his home.
Teaching Fifth Graders to Make Peer Recommendations
Katherine Sokolowski confers with her son Liam and his friend Caden, helping them learn how to make peer book recommendations.
“If You Like” Reading Recommendations Conference
Building "next-read" stacks with students before holidays is a great way to ensure they have books in hand that they will be excited to read over break. Katherine Sokolowski helps Taryn finds books that are similar to those written by Rick Riordan (Taryn's favorite author).
Writing a Strong Conclusion to a Literary Analysis Essay
Christy Rush-Levine helps eighth grader Katherine sort through tools and strategies for writing a strong conclusion to her literary analysis essay.
Eighth-Grade Conference: Empathetic Reading
Christy Rush-Levine confers with eighth grader Julian about his strengths as an empathetic reader.
Super Teacher Reading Workshop
Mary Lee Hahn tries to be super teacher while she confers — juggling goals, assessments, notices and notes . . . and then it all comes crashing down. She shares what she learns from trying to do too much at once and failing.
Conferring in First Grade: Reading Illustrations
Katrina Edwards helps a first grader use pictures to help her make sense of confusing text.
Conferring with Spencer: Writing Notebook Topics
Katherine Sokolowski helps fifth grader Spencer brainstorm topics for his writing notebook.
Celebrating and Nudging: First-Grade Writing Conference
Bitsy Parks takes time to celebrate first grader Colson’s finished writing, even as she nudges him to try a technique shared in the day’s minilesson.
Building a Next-Read Stack
Katherine Sokolowski helps fifth grader Abby build her next-read stack of books.
Digital Revision: Conferring with Aidan
In this week’s video, Gigi McAllister helps fourth grader Aidan revise his writing on the computer to flesh out character development.
Brainstorming Writing Topics with Drew
Katherine Sokolowski confers with Drew about writing at home, brainstorming possible topics. In the process she shows how much she knows about Drew's life outside of school.
First-Grade Conferring: A Two-Word Picture Book
Bitsy Parks shows how even the simplest picture book can lead to powerful conferring. In this example, a first-grade English language learner is reading a picture book that uses only two words in the text.
Do I Really Have to Keep Conferring Notes?
Ruth Ayres answers a question from teachers, Do I really have to keep conferring notes? Spoiler alert: The answer is yes.
Conferring Questions
Ruth Ayres finds there can be a difference between questions in writing conferences that inspire an enthusiastic response, and those that foster more reflection and independence.
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