“… how will I know they are being honest? That they really read?”
It seems my reluctant readers through all my classes and my struggling readers in my co-taught classes will go through the motions as if reading… but struggle to hold up their ruse when I meet with them to conference about what they’ve read. During our Monitored Reading/Self-Selected Reading time, each student engages in a book of their choice – and with my (hopefully) loaded-full-of-options classroom bookcases, I won’t know all the stories, magazines, non-fiction texts that my shelves offer. Through many challenging student groups and years of struggles, I’ve found some strategic questions (tested out on conferences about books where I did know the backstory, at least somewhat).
By opening the conference with a general question, I can feel out where the student is in their book… and their comprehension. First, asking for a summary – of what was read most recently – not a “back of the book” overview. That way we can dig deeper if they seem to have only surface understanding; I might ask something like, “tell me more about (a character) (a character’s situation).” OR sometimes seeing chapter titles that switch names (like Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen where it flips between characters’ viewpoints of an event moment) OR maybe there is a use of different fonts at certain points (like chapter beginnings in Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card) – by asking a question about, “What is going on here?” I may even offer a chance to clear up a comprehension clunk for the student (that has been true for both of these books, especially Ender’s Game).
We may also dig deeper to show the student’s grasp of a core standard: “You talk as if (character) is real. What makes him/her feel real to you?” (author technique/characterization).
Once we’ve found a “topic,” it may work well to do a fluency check and to see if the student really did find evidence for their summary or response: “Wow, (character) sounds really brave. Can you find a spot to read to me that made you think that way about him/her?” As the student reads an excerpt there are many thoughts:
- How quickly did they find a reading?
- Was it appropriate to the topic (standard) we were aiming toward? (great indicators of comprehension!)
- And with the brief oral reading I can hear/get a sense of any fluency issues and foundational reading skills – multi-syllabic words/complex spellings, decoding rate, word substitutions — that may impact comprehension and their enjoyment of their reading.
So, when meeting with the new teacher today, I understood her concern and frustration in knowing if a student is really engaging in their Monitored Reading book – and it felt good to share ideas that had passed many a test.