Chapter+9

__**﻿Chapter Nine: Improving Student Conversations about Books**__ Chapter 9 from Bobbi Friend #1 – Conferring during partner work is similar to conferring during independent reading workshop. My conference would begin with research through observation of the partnership. I would decide on my teaching point based on my research. To help make this decision, I need to “pay attention to both the reading skills and the conversational skills that I see them using while I research’, according to the author. It makes sense to me that during a partner conference I would focus more on speaking and listening skills to improve those skills. The main pitfall to this type of conference is determining the skill and planning the strategy to teach quickly to be certain the conference is useful for the student. The Checklist on page 121 is a great place to start if you are focusing on speaking skills.
 * 1) 1. Another opportunity to confer is available during partner talk and book clubs. There are numerous reasons for conferring during this time and Jen and Gravity proceed to explain how you conduct these conferences. How do you see yourself conferring during these times and what pitfalls might you encounter? Explain.
 * Respond Here:**

The chart on page 121 will be a guide for my minilessons about improving student conversations about books. This is an activity I have not zoned in on. We will be practicing this skill together. Muy first unit of study will be researching my students. I'll not set up my partners and book clubs until I have a handle on my students. So what I will be doing is "mock" club/partners. During these lessons I will observe and listen to conversations. We will come together and I will share what I heard and togther practice how to have deeper, clearer conversations. As I practice this skill, I will beable to move my students question and answer to an actual discussion. The only pitfall will be patience while developing this course.

Margaret Fox

I will admit that while I spent a lot of time last year walking around and listening to partners read and share ideas together, I rarely conducted a conference other than a compliment conference. This is yet another area where I would like to grow. The charts on pages 120 and 121 will be copied and added to my conferring binder to help me come up with teaching ideas. Like Bobbi, I feel that many of my partner conferences will revolve around speaking and listening skills. First and second grade students need a lot of coaching to have great partner talks so it feels natural to go that route and leave reading skills and strategies to individual and small group conferences, at least for the time being. Stephanie Cooper I agree with Stephanie about conferring during partner talk time and how the focus switches to more conversation and listening skills and less on reading skills especially for first and second graders. The charts on page 120 and 121 address the difference between conversation and reading strategies as well as specific conversational skills young readers should develop. These two charts are great resources and reminders to spend time on conversation skills. By strengthening partner talk a student’s comprehension, coherent thinking, vocabulary, and metacognition are improved. I anticipate a pitfall being that teaching conversational skills to a first grader s hard and often too abstract for some young learners. I’m going to have to take the skills slow and practice often to help the student grow. Garth

Conferring during partner time will be new for me and most of my students. I don't see us doing this right away in the year so we will have time to get used to conferring at other times. This should seem like a natural extension to how we confer. I'm not sure how 5th graders are going to feel about these deep conversations about their reading. I'm hoping that we have created a safe, secure environment where they feel valued and respected and will take advantage of partnerships, and the teaching I will do around those partnerships. If I can get them to deepen their thinking about reading by doing a good job of researching how they use their strategies I will probably be more successful at engaging them in the coaching and teaching of those and new strategies. Mike

I am going to like trying to confer during partner talk. This will give me an little insight into my student's thinking. When you confer you can listen to them and see how they make meaning out of the text. The talk will allow me to "coach and confer into their meaning-making in genuine ways." "This can motivate them to want to learn how to talk about their books with their friends at a deeper levels." I am going to try this as soon as I can extablish the behavior guidelines and expectations. Ronda

Conferring during partner time is not something I have done in the past. One area that I know I will focus on is the conversation skills my students need to have to carry on a book conversation. Currently when we have shared a book, it involves one person retelling their story and the partner responding with a simple “ok” or something similar. My goal will be in give my students the skills to have an on-going discussion about a book. The chart on page 125 of the book is a great starting place for me as I begin these conferences. Sue Ronning

I also have never done book clubs or partner talks, so all of this is quite new to me. By what have I have in the book and here on the wiki, it sounds like compliment conferencing will be the best way to start, having copies of the charts on pages 120 and 121 out to help guide me. I remember looking at "Thick and Thin Questions" from Beth Newingham's site, so I plan on getting some ideas from there to use. One step at a time. There is so much to do and learn, I need to keep things paced and learn and adapt as i teach the units this year. TGaribay

This is an are I have a lot of interest in—improving book conversations. This goes hand in had with improving, expanding and developing a students vocabulary. I know the author advocates keeping the same partnerships for a long period of time, which I believe, is good for many reasons. But I have had where I have a low reader from avery educational minded family that had a large and expansive voculary but was having trouble breaking the code to learn to read at the high level of his vocabulary. Therefore at times I liked to partner him with a reader higher than his level to help both partners. This help build on his strength. A big pro is that there is no 2nd better teacher in the room than other students. Conferring and then letting partner work through what the teacher mini lesson or conference covered does more than retouching even did. Kdn

When I conferred with partners, like Stephanie and Garth, I would focus more time on conversational skills and being a helpful partner rather than reading skills. I, too, plan to have the prompts on page 120 posted in my conferring notebook to help me nudge with their reading and conversational skills. I’m interested in looking more into the “Thick and Thin Questions” from Beth Newingham’s site, as TGaribay noted and am also going to pace myself as I take on and improve more elements of the Readers’ Workshop. I do see myself being better prepared with the goals of the unit and focus on those as I confer, besides just good partner behaviors. I’m excited to improve in this area because I know that I can help many readers at once and get to more readers throughout the week, as the authors noted on page 118. Sara Sabourin

--- Chapter 9 from Bobbi Friend #2 The teaching method that I prefer and have used the most often is the ghost-partner teaching. The author tells us that ghost partnering occurs when the teacher simply whispers ideas to one of the partners to reinforce the conversational skills that students need to be practicing. By providing quiet prompts to one of the partners, the skill that you choose to reinforce can be scripted in a very discreet manner. By using ghost partners, I can “help the students maintain ownership of the conversation while still supporting them to continue to improve their conversational language and strategies. I consider whether the readers are attempting to use reading and conversational strategies with limited success, and whether they have the foundations of a basic conversation.” As a ghost partner, the teacher does not become an overt part of the conversation. The teacher is a coach only and the students maintain ownership of all the talk in the group. I feel that these are very valuable reasons for using this method.
 * 1) 2. Three different teaching methods are explained that can be used as students are talking about books: ghost-partner teaching, demonstration teaching and proficient partner teaching. Share which one of these methods appeals to you. If you have tried one of these, explain how it went.
 * Respond Here:**

I have used the ghost partner method on occasion, but use the proficient partner more frequently. I sat in with partnerships and groups enough last year that students didn’t stop what they were discussing when I sat down. I tended to use the ghost partner when working with students who already had a decent conversation moving along. They were exchanging ideas well, but needed a little extra push to deepen their understanding. If I came across a group of students that were struggling with what to say or having a conversation that wasn’t going anywhere like the one described on page 128, I became a proficient partner. Although, I must admit I didn’t do a great job of naming the strategy I modeled. Definitely an area where I can grow this year. It’s funny to listen to partnerships and groups after you have played the role of ghost or proficient partner because the students begin to sound like you. The students love to use the teacher’s words and expressions, especially in the lower Stephanie Cooper

When I read this chapter what intrigued me most was the ghost partner method. I am new to readers workshop so I was unfamiliar with this strategy but I think it is a fantastic way to coach the kids while letting them find their own voices. In the past I can see where I would have " butt in" and talked to and for the kids rather than allow them to do the talking with only my help with some whispered words. Reading this chapter definately made me stop and think about how I would have approached this in the past. I can see the importance of coaching the students and offering the words to assist them with deepening their discussions. They will not learn to have these conversations with each other if they don''t have the opportunity to practice them I don't believe that these discussions are going to come naturally for all the students and the teacher support will hopefully help. --Jodee Tuttle

I have tried all three types but I found myself using the Ghost – Partner teaching method more often last year. I found that teaching such young learners required that I actually give them the exact words to say because their vocabulary is still developing. By giving them the words they need helped them to formulate strong questions and keep conversation going. I also liked how I remained on the periphery of the partnership as I whispered ideas into a student’s ear and didn’t become the center. The control seemingly was kept between the two partners and the focused remained on the conversation not Mr. Trask. When I saw a partnership working well then I tried the Proficient Partner Teaching which worked fine especially when I summarized the specific skill that I was trying to get across in the conversation. This method was most useful for my higher readers and deeper thinkers. Garth I know that the dynamics of my class will determine what method I use the most often. If I have more independent learners I may use the ghost-partner method. I can help my students by giving them the ownership of the conversation while I support them. If they are in need of more explicit teaching I would use the demonstration method. If they aren't engaging or are struggling with the more basic concepts of their conversation then I would stop them, compliment them and move right onto my teaching point. If they seem like they need to be pushed a little on their converstion skills or deepen their thinking, I might just step into the conversation and ask key questions, offer them insights, or add ideas to their conversation. The proficient-partner method is even more supportive for the students. I would hope after this step that they would be able to take off from this point to a more independent conversation and a less evasive method. Ronda

I can see myself using all three types of teaching methods. To start the year, the proficient partner may be the strategy I use more often as my students are new to readers workshop and not very skilled at talking about their books. As my students’ skills progress, I can see fading back to the ghost whispering strategy and letting my students have more ownership in the conversations. Demonstrations will be used as needed or when a new skill is being practiced by my students. I have not done a lot of conferencing with my students in their partnerships, so I am excited to try these methods. Sue Ronning

All three methods are going to be new to me. I can see myself starting out with the proficient-partner teaching method first. My students are also not used to having this type of book chats, so I will have to do a lot of pushing to get them started or to push their thinking further. Like Sue, I will also use the other two methods, but this is also a learning experience for me. I will need to walk around and listen to groups figuring out how to best guide them. After reading the section on deciding which method to use, I really can't say which I will use the most or be more comfortable using. I need to get in there and get my feet wet. See what the needs of my students are. I know I will be referring back to this section of the book a lot for support as I do this during the school year. TGaribay

I like and I hope that I do the Ghost-partnering the most. It lets young students present and own the ideas. We do this with small children all the time on varied subjects. Demonstration teaching we are all ready doing that with mini lessons. I am sure this has its place especially with ELL and possible some special needs students who do better if things are demonstrated in a more real time situation. Proficient-partner teaching where the teacher becomes a member. Appeal to me especially when you want to model and structure and the higher-level vocabulary in relation to the book club. Kdn


 * Like Jodee, I’m looking forward to “whispering in” or using the “ghost-partner teaching,” as was described on pages 122-123. This method appeals to me because it offers scaffolding to the child without taking away their ownership in the conversation (page 122). I do this type of teaching more when dealing with social-emotional issues with children (such as, “Say: I feel sad when you hit me.”) I offer support for the child to connect his feelings and words. I see how this would be an easy and effective way to support the readers’ metacognitive and conversational skills to make their reading and thinking visible to her partner. **
 * Sara Sabourin **