Response to the First Conference

October 26th, 2009

Coming into the first "real" conference where I would have to come up with something to work with Kate on was unnerving; I didn't know if I could actually come up with a particular issue to work with her on in a split second. The end of the Calkins chapter we read, "Coaching and Conferring with Readers" was good to read and know that I'm not the only one who feels this way, "Coaching and conferring takes courage... But we musn't be too timid to try... Our children deserve our bravest selves." (p. 117)

I was completely taken aback by the change in Kate's fluency from her running record to her first conference. This time, I brought in the book Trixie the Halloween Fairy by Daisy Meadows.

After listening to her reading the beginning of this book, I was able to utilize Candace's approach to guiding conferencing and create an ALG for Kate.

A, which stands for accomplishment or what the student did well on, was Kate's use of inflection in dialogue such as in the line "Are you sure?" She also did an excellent job with pronouncing words she was unfamiliar with; every time she found a word she didn't recognize she would ask me what it was but for the most part she got almost all of the words right when I asked her what she thought it said.

L is for learning or what the teacher teaches the student during the conference, which in this case was having Kate pause at the end of each sentence when she reaches a period. I modeled the act for her, and then I asked her to show me how two of the sentences she read would sound if she had paused at the period between them.

G stands for goal, or what things the student should try to focus on for that week after the conference. In this case the goal was for Kate to practice pausing at periods, and it was also a goal for her to practice letting her finger find the next line before she starts talking so that what she reads out loud makes sense.

Last time I worked with her, Kate used her finger to guide her eyes while reading but this time she didn't, so I asked her why this was so. Her only response was "Because I didn't want to use my finger this time." I made sure to explain to her the importance of using the finger right now to keep the eyes where they should be, and she seemed to understand. This made me wonder: what should we do if a student absolutely refuses to cooperate for a day? What do you do?

I asked Mrs. C these questions during some of our free time, and she explained that it is normal for the kids to have much better days than others. She said that on the days where they would not work with her, she just accepted that she wouldn't be able to make them budge and would instead just wait patiently and eventually they will change their minds. Mrs. C has several students in her class that tend to have negative attitude swings and she shared with us that she has just learned how to pick her battles carefully because otherwise the students just shut down. Hopefully Kate will have practiced her goals for next week!