Conferring: The Keystone of Reader's Workshop by Patrick Allen

Conferences are an invaluable way to get to know your students as readers. This simple guide begins by explaining what conferring is and what it's not, and then explores the essential components of the process: intimacy (the social context), rigor (the cognitive context), and inquiry (the analytical context). It then works through conferring's guiding principles--including goal setting, instruction points, listening, rapport, challenges, and teacher learning--and provides questions that will lead teachers through a reader's conference from start to finish.