A Teacher's Guide to Reading Conferences

Why are reading conferences so important?

What do effective reading conferences look and sound like?

How do I fit reading conferences into my literacy block?

"Conferring," writes Jennifer Serravallo, "is where the magic happens." In this primer, she reveals that this seeming magic is actually purposeful, responsive instruction.

Jen presents conferences for six specific instructional situations: assessing, goal-setting, strategy lessons, and more. A rich design, replete with infographics and special features, guides you quickly from learning to teaching with:

• Jen's moves and language
• 9 videos of her teaching in K-8 classrooms
• 13 conference note-taking forms-one for each reading goal from the hierarchy in her Reading Strategies Book
• Suggestions for connecting emergent bilingual learners' language goals and reading goals.

With Jen's support, you'll discover the true magic of conferring-the joyous, aha moments you'll see in growing readers.

Jennifer Serravallo is the author of New York Times bestseller The Reading Strategies Book as well as other popular Heinemann Professional Books, The Writing Strategies Book; Teaching Reading in Small Groups; Conferring with Readers; and The Literacy Teacher's Playbook, Grades K - 2 and Grades 3 - 6. Her newest book is Understanding Texts & Readers , and in January of 2019, A Teacher's Guide to Reading Conferences will become available as part of the Classroom Essentials series. Also in 2019, Heinemann will publish Complete Comprehension, a curricular resource from Jen that connects the progressions from Understanding Texts & Readers and the teaching in The Reading Strategies Book via a simple, commonsense evaluation technique that helps you analyze responses students write during independent reading that indicate their ability to comprehend whole chapter books or nonfiction books. Additionally, Jen is the author of the On-Demand Courses Strategies in Action: Reading and Writing Methods and Content and Teaching Reading in Small Groups: Matching Methods to Purposes where you can watch dozens of videos of Jen teaching in real classrooms and engage with other educators in a self-guided course. Jen began her career in education as a teacher in Title I schools in NYC and later joined the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. Through TCRWP, and now as an independent consultant, she has spent over a decade helping teachers across the country to create literacy classrooms where students are joyfully engaged and the the instruction is meaningfully individualized to students' goals. Jen holds a BA from Vassar College and an MA from Teachers College, where she has also taught graduate and undergraduate classes on urban education reform and children's literature. Learn more about Jen and her work at https://www.heinemann.com/jenniferserravallo/, or connect with her at @jserravallo.

For many years as the author of bestselling Heinemann books such as About the Authors, Study Driven, Already Ready, and In Pictures and In Words, and as a member of Heinemann's Professional Development Services, Katie Wood Ray gave teachers resources and PD that transformed writing instruction and helped children discover a lifelong love of writing. In 2014, Katie "moved to the other side of the desk" and joined the dynamic team of editors at Heinemann where she works closely with authors to craft powerful professional books on a range of literacy topics. Katie is also the series editor for the new Classroom Essentials books from Heinemann. Tasked with bringing foundational, progressive practices to a new generation of teachers, Katie works to ensure that the sharp focus and enhanced design of each book best serve the content. She also teamed up with her longtime collaborator, Lisa Cleaveland, to write one of the first books in the series, A Teacher's Guide to Getting Started with Beginning Writers. You can find her on Twitter at @KatieWoodRay.