Conferring with Readers: Supporting Each Student's Growth and Independence

by Jennifer Serravallo, Gravity Goldberg

A great reading conference only takes five minutes, but its impact can last a lifetime. That's because conferences are the critical, one-to-one teaching that forms the backbone of reading instruction. Conferring with Readers shows you how to confer well and demonstrates why a few moments with students every week can put them on the path to becoming better, more independent readers.

Conferring with Readers is a comprehensive guide that shows you how to determine what readers have learned and what they need to practice, then provides suggestions for targeting instruction to meet students' needs. It provides explicit teaching methods for use in effective conferences. You'll learn how to:

research a student's use of skills through questions and observations
compliment to support and build upon successes
follow up on prior instruction for accountability and depth of understanding
explain a reading strategy by providing an explicit purpose and context
model the strategy to make the invisible brainwork of reading more visible
guide a readerinpracticing the strategy
link the strategy to independent reading. Conferring with Readers presents repeatable frameworks for conferences that focus on six specific purposes of reading instruction:
matching students to just-right books reinforcing students' strengths supporting students during whole-class studies helping students move from one reading level to the next holding students accountable for previous learning deepening students' conversations about books in order to deepen their thinking. What's more, each purpose is bolstered by an appendix of conference transcripts that support your teaching. With all this plus ideas for planning instruction, keeping records of your conferences, and even conducting group sessions, Conferring with Readers will make a big difference in how you teach reading-helping you feel confident and well equipped to foster each student's growth and independence as a reader.

Genres: Education, Professional Development, Teaching, School, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 17, 2007

Reviews

[Michele Knott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just did a thorough reread of this book. I think I could learn 20 new things every time I go back into this book.

[Andrea McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful - lots of ideas and potential questions that I can apply to MS, super systems for tracking progress. Feeling excited to apply with my classes.....

[Celeste · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great balance between Calkins and F&P... Nice job providing many examples of how to structure plans, instruction and conferences.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

great reference book for readers workshop teachers. read the chapters you need, skip the ones you don't.

[Ellen Riggenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book, because I heard that Jennifer and Gravity share some good recording ideas. It definitely did. I walked away understanding the importance of record keeping in conferences and the need to instill habits and routines. I also really enjoyed the authors’ way of relating the art of conferring with a yoga practice. Both take practice, tools, and strategies. Even while I’m not actively teaching, I have actionable things to do to prepare for my future reading instruction, which will with no doubt include conferring. Many will flop, but only with practice with si improve and build my confidence and skill.

[Danielle Wilkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me think about reading instruction a bit differently. Serravallo offers study-based practices that drive results, such as providing leveled texts that students are interested in, working with students one-on-one to compliment a strategy they are using and proposing another one to add to their reading toolbox, and implementing reading logs, journals, and sticky notes to help readers engage with the text. Highly recommend.

[Charnae LaLuzerne · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a plethora of scenarios for teaching reading and conferring with readers. I appreciate the examples and tips, such as the "three finger rule" for finding a book that has the right amount of vocabulary challenge, and an entire chapter on complimenting individual and groups of readers. I recommend this book for any literacy teacher to wants to improve their teaching of reading.

[Pernia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed approach to reading workshop and teaching developmental reading. It was very good to read, but now I have to think about how to adapt to secondary instruction. We don’t have 50 min per day to devote to reading- we have that to devote to all instruction.

[Saundra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just attended a training put on by Ms. Goldberg, and it seems some of her thoughts and practices have changed since working on this book (or maybe those ideas are more attributable to Ms. Serravallo. Great advice in many cases and this info will be helpful in the upcoming school years.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've heard lots of people talk about the importance of having reading conferences with students. This book lays out exactly what to say, how to do conferences, what to conference about, how to take notes. It's really helpful! It'll be on my list of books to read again and again.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars; Nice introduction to Reader's Workshop and Conferring; I was able to get some practical conferring tips (including suggestions on how to confer during student Book Club meetings)

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skewed a LOT younger than I was expecting based on the other books in which it was cited. It seems very helpful for someone who teaches younger grades but it simply wasn't good for my purposes.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be an excellent resource for a newer teacher or a teacher who is new to conferring/wants to amp up their conferring practices. I glossed over a few parts of the book- things which I am already very familiar with (taking and analyzing running records, etc.).

Parts I enjoyed:
- Occasionally using "Compliment Conferences" as a teaching tool to reinforce strategies that the student is already doing well. Give a specific example of when they used the strategy, tell them why it is helpful, re-state the strategy and help them to see how this strategy will be useful with other texts.
- Remembering that coaching supports independence. I needed this reminder about using more generalizable prompts instead of ones that are too specific. The student needs to be doing most of the thinking/processing, not me.
- How to research reading levels in an organized way to become familiar with the nuances and differences between them. I liked the graphic organizer on p. 93 to organize this information, along with these questions when studying levels: "What might pose a challenge to a reader new to this level? What skill might they need to tackle this?" "What questions to ask/behaviors to look for to assess?"

[Julie Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I've been trying to read this since last summer, and finally finished it. Like all good professional texts, I wish I had read it earlier in order to try out some of the strategies in a more deliberate way. The author's give some great, practical ways to implement student conferences with individual reading. Like most literacy books of this kind, the real-life examples are all from elementary grades, but most are still useful.

[Jacki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly can't remember how I ended up with this book. I teach 6th grade ELA and this is geared much more toward elementary. However, I did find value in it, and that's why I had to give it 5 stars. The strategies and tools in this book have helped me shape SSR and Lit circles in my room, especially with my classes that have struggling readers who need specific one-on-one guidance in reading strategies.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read for anyone looking to strengthen their reading instruction. Useful information regarding planning and instruction during individual and small group work with readers. Throughout the book there are suggestions for how to apply to your practice through reflection and collaboration with colleagues. Great book for a PLC.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about conferring and how it all fits within a Reader's Workshop. Before reading this book, I felt like I was pretty good at it when I used it in my 1st grade classroom. This book helped me understand how all of it works in the upper grades. Great resource that I will be using as I push into a third grade classroom.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an easy read that contained good ideas in terms of how to confer with all students on a weekly basis. It also shows some basic record keeping structures which would be effective and simple to use.

[Marysue Gulick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great read. I've read other books about Conferring with readers, and this one seems to tie it all together into doable chunks. Plus it is an enjoyable read - the author manages to insert lots of research without being preachy or boring.

[Colleen Spillers · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent resource for teachers of reading at the elementary and middle school levels, too. She gives great insight for organizing your conferring time without going overboard with nitty gritty detailed plans of "this is exactly what to do with every second of your lessons"....

[Melaniegaeta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for new teachers/ student teachers. Reminds us of what we should have in place in our own rooms. Easy read. Anyone who works at 32 could have written this!

[Jen Munnerlyn]

This book has been ordered for the 2009-10 school year on the advice of Katherine Casey who led the NESA Literacy Coaching group meeting in Jordan in November, 2008.

[Mischa]

This book is a goodread, although I liked Supporting Independent Readers by Nancy Allison better. This book focuses on one-on-one conferencing with primary grade students.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing! I wish it was one that I studied when getting my Masters. Now if only I can convince my principal to get it...

[Trista · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for understanding how conferring with readers can fit into the workshop model.

[Michelle Rohrer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect resource for teachers that use Conferences! I learned so much from this book, and I continue to go back to it daily.

[Tina Cassidy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for teachers on how to conduct conferences. Very clear. Makes conferring less scary!

[Briana Cleveland · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for any workshop teacher!

[Angela Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great information about conferring. Many sample sheets and ideas that are applicable to the classroom!

[Grace White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful for practical work in the classroom. Highly recommend.