Conferring with Readers- From a reader's perspective

Recently, Stacey Dziedzic asked her students what they liked about conferring. (She wanted to make sure that her students valued them as much as she did.) Their thoughts are priceless!  Here are a few things they wrote on their index cards:

"You can share your thinking, why you chose the book, what touched your heart and everthing."

"It makes me feel like my voice is heard."

When I am conferring its a time for me to share my struggles and if inferring is going good or not.

"I like conferring because I can tell you my challenges."

"When I am conferring I like it because I can set my self goals.  When I am conferring I feal like I am important."

"It feelsl like we have a 2nd share square.  Since we all like share square, we all LOVE conferring!"

"When I confer it helps me to correct my thinking and get more thinking."

Conferring with Readers

Katie Wood Ray and Lucy Caulkins, in my opinon are the "godesses of writing" and Ellin Keene is the "Queen of Reading Comprehension," but when it comes to conferring Patrick Allen is the man!  I had the good fortune of actually observing in his classroom 5 years ago in Denver, CO and was amazed by what I saw.  He has recently published a book entitled, Conferring: The Keystone of the Reader's Workshop, which I would highly reccomend, but he also has a blog (that is way better than mine), where he reccomends texts and discuss various topics in literacy.  http://all-en-a-days-work.blogspot.com/  So, next time you are looking for that just right text or you're just bored (OK, I know that never happens), I would encourage you to check it out!