LearIing Through Literacy Actions
ConferMing Small Group Lessons
One of my favorite parts of reader’s workshop was
conferring with Reese and getting insights into her
thoughts and ideas as a reader. The conversations I had
with Reese during our conferences helped me adjust my
literacy goals for her and teach into them. This one-on-
one time was crucial in understanding Reese’s progress
so that I could plan in ways that would best support her
needs. During our first conferring session, I began
working on retelling with Reese since that was an area of
need after her initial assessment and something that
came up in our conversation. She was reading Otherwise
Known as Sheila the Great by Judy Blume, so I modeled
how she could stop and think after each chapter to
remember what happened in the story. It was a good way
for Reese to check her understanding and
comprehension. This was a smooth transition to our next
conference, in which we talked about balancing the details in a retelling so that only the main details
were of focus. I modeled and had her try out asking the question, “Is this detail important in
understanding the story?” When we worked on the storytelling hand on 3/7/18, Reese was able
to combine what she knew about balancing details with the elements of a story. I was able to guide
her in being able to retell a story in a logical flow that also had balanced details. As we worked on
these teaching points in this one-on-one setting, I could see Reese gaining confidence in herself
to try this out on her own. Her retellings were stronger each week and she was beginning to think
and process her texts with more care and attention to detail.
Growing Together
I completed a follow-up running record assessment with Reese on 4/18/18, in which she read My
Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits. After she read the book, I had Reese do a retelling complete with
follow-up questions asked by me so I could assess how she had grown since our initial assessments
in February. Reese made significant progress with this retelling! Right away, her retelling started
with the character’s name and setting, which was not something she directly identified in her initial
assessment. Her retelling followed the same flow as the storytelling hand and she could recall all
of the major important details that were key in order to understand the story. When I asked Reese
what she thought about the main character Yoon and how she felt in the story, Reese was able to tell
me that Yoon felt lonely and sad and lonely because she had just moved to the country. Reese was
able to connect that to her own life and feeling lonely when her sister has friends over without
inviting Reese. Reese even touched on the transformation of the main character and how Yoon
was happier at the end after she made a friend. Hearing Reese talk about all of these ideas after
reading made it obvious to me how far she has come over the past couple months. She has grown
into a reader who can talk about her books in depth and detail and make real and thoughtful
connections. It was a very positive experience to practice my belief of implementing instruction
that would foster independence for Reese while building a relationship with her that encouraged her
to embrace the capable and competent learner that she is.
Impacting One Another
Reese’s Growth:
Reese has shown tremendous growth over the course of the
semester. I have watched her blossom into a more confident
reader who is able to use a variety of strategies to think and
talk about her reading. She has become more independent
in using these strategies and has gained a sense of
responsibility as a reader. Reese is no longer reading just to
decode text, she is reading to make meaning! She has come
to embrace what readers do and has become more
comfortable talking and sharing her thinking about books
with others.
When working on our literacy goals, I had the opportunity to plan and implement small group
lessons for Reese and a few of her peers. Small group lessons are so important because they allow
different readers to work on the same strategy or skill area of need, regardless of what level books
they usually read. It also give students the chance to talk and learn from one another with the
sharing of thoughts and ideas. During my small group lesson, I focused on using the storytelling
hand to help with retelling because I noticed that there were a couple other students who could
benefit from that same lesson. I taught this by directly modeling what the storytelling hand was and
creating one as an anchor chart using a well-known story, which was The Three Little Pigs. I
scaffolded the lesson by using this familiar story and modeling how I would retell it, followed by
releasing some of the responsibility to my students and having them practice the same thing with a
partner before independently reading. This lesson helped my group of students understand what
elements are necessary to include when retelling a story and they could easily remember them since
each finger on their own hands corresponded with a different element. When conferring with
students during this small group lesson, I realized that I wanted to move into thinking about
characters for my next lesson and being able to connect or relate
with them, since I was not noticing a lot of deep thinking in that
aspect. I modeled how readers can think about what the character
Miss Koehler: “Why
is doing and how they must be feeling in order to empathize and should readers make
then connect with them. My small group was engaged in this connections?”
lesson and I found Reese responding really well in her own
independent reading time when she made a connection to Big Reese: “To understand
Nate: Game On to how she feels nervous for her swim meets the characters better.”
similarly to how Nate was nervous for trying out for the basketball -4/4/18
team. Overall, all of the students were able to benefit from seeing
a clear demonstration and having time together to talk about
strategies like retelling or connecting. It was apparent how when readers share ideas, they gain
new findings and insights.
Whole Group Lesson
Miss Hayden’s class was beginning a poetry unit when it was time
to teach my small group lesson on 4/11/18, so I thought I would
plan a lesson on finding theme in poetry to align with Reese’s
literacy goal of thinking and talking about books to grow ideas.
In my lesson, I demonstrated how to first think about the overall
topic of a poem, such as ‘acceptance’ or ‘being yourself’ and then
modeled my questioning aloud of ‘what is the poem teaching us
about that topic?’ This was a good introduction for thinking
about deeper meanings of poems, which is what Reese has been
working on with other books all semester. However, with this
lesson I realized the importance of being flexible in the
classroom. My lesson could be broken up into smaller lessons in
the future because some students confused theme with tone, which
is what I realized when I conferred with Reese. It was great that she was thinking about the feeling in
the poem, but this helped inform me that if I were to do a future lesson, I could only focus on
summing up the topic of a poem before moving into theme. However, I am still grateful that this
opportunity to lead a whole group lesson let me feel a sense of presence in the classroom and a
more confident teacher.
Miss Koehler’s Growth:
Being Reese’s co-learner for the past semester has taught
me so much about myself and my beliefs as an educator. I
now understand better what it means to ‘follow the
child’ and plan for their areas of need in ways that will
build off of and support their strengths. I have learned the
significance of building relationships with students in
order to establish a safe and positive classroom
environment in which every learner is comfortable.
Lastly, I have learned to embrace the idea of flexibility in
the classroom and understanding that not everything goes
as planned—and that’s okay! What’s important is that I
listen to my students and follow their needs.