Jecoliah Whittaker Blog #4 Conferencing

I’ve had several opportunities to conference with my students. During one occasion, students choose their own books to read and they had to tell me why they choose the books. Some responses were general and students just said that they liked the book, but other students broadened their answers for example stating that they choose the books because it reminded them of another book they liked and they wanted to learn more on the topic.  During conferencing, I learn a lot from my students such as if they are having difficulty with the text and if they really understand what they are reading. I ask a lot of questions such as, what was your favorite part, did you make any connections, what happened in the story and why, would you change anything about the story, what would you be interested in reading next. On a few instances, students have generated their own questions to answer about the story such as what would change if there was another setting or characters. Of course most of the questions they have heard me ask before during whole group lessons, but that’s okay with me. Conferencing is a great way to get to know my readers so I will continue to conference as much as possible.