There is dedicated time at the beginning of the year in Units 1 and 2 for you to gather information about the students’ reading lives and habits, for the students to build stamina for reading independently, and for students to learn to notice what they think about as they read. Getting to know students as individuals and as readers can shed light on topics that motivate and excite students, which is essential when supporting their reading development. Getting to know students also helps build a trusting bond between you and the students, which is key to creating an atmosphere in which the students gain confidence and are more willing to take risks.
Finally, it’s important for students to be able to focus on reading for at least 30 minutes so you can conduct conferences without distraction and students can strengthen their self-monitoring muscles when reading independently.
After the initial phase of getting to know your students, we recommend that you complete a Conference Planning Record for each student. This is a synthesis of what you have learned through the Student-Interests Conference, the student’s self-assessment, and your own observations. In the record you will note the student’s reading strengths as well as the items on the self-assessment that the student has marked as “Sometimes” or “Never.” This Conference Planning Record allows you to enter the Goal-Setting Conference with a snapshot of the student as a reader and some preliminary ideas about suitable reading goals for that student.
Next, we recommend that you conduct a Goal-Setting Conference with each student (that phase starts later in Unit 2). During the Goal-Setting Conference, the student reads aloud from their current text so you can make sure the book is a good match for the student. Next you’ll help the student identify a couple of reading goals. Then you’ll introduce an activity for the student to do while reading independently. The student leaves the Goal-Setting Conference prepared to do their first independent reading activity. From that point on, the teacher continues to confer with each student throughout the remainder of the program––we recommend a couple of times per unit.
All subsequent conferences are called Reading-Development Conferences. In these conferences, you check in on the student’s progress with their goals, discuss with the student how it went with their most recent reading activity, the student reads aloud a bit from their current book, and you identify the next independent reading activity for the student to complete.