We’re digging deeper now, working hard to individualize our instruction and support children as they apply what we’ve taught them in large and small group settings. When we confer with students, we’re not standing above them or even leaning over, we’re sitting right beside them, shoulder to shoulder. But we don’t want to confuse touching base with conferring.Ĭonferring is something else entirely. Touching base is all about responding at the surface level to student behaviors. That “little something in between” might be encouraging a child to keep at it, reminding a child to get back on track or asking a child if she’s remembered what she learned in our conference yesterday to help her with her work today. Touching base with children is a quick hi and bye with a little something in between. In the time I spent conferring with one child, listening to them read, asking questions to make sense of their reading, and puzzling over next steps with them, I could have easily touched base with three, four, five, maybe even six more children. Right about now you might be wondering, “How do you justify spending so much time with one child? What about the twenty four others that need your time and attention, too?” While I touch base with many children in every reader’s workshop, I really confer with only a couple each day. So in the end the choice really is ours …ĭo we race through the day in a frantic sort of way, or do we slow down, determine what’s essential, and teach those things deeply and well? Do we talk and tell and talk and tell and talk and tell some more, or do we show kids how and then give them lots of opportunities across the day for sharing in the responsibility for their learning? Taking Time to Confer No matter how fast we teach or how hard we try, it’s impossible to do all we’re being asked to do when teaching for understanding is our goal.

Just like reading fast isn’t always about reading well, teaching fast isn’t always about teaching well either. It limits mindfulness, understanding and engagement for students and teachers alike. It’s hard to teach (and learn) with a timer in your head or one in your hand. They’re developing those can-do, let-me-have-it attitudes that we want so much for them. When kids are given time to puzzle through something that’s challenging (with just enough support from their teacher to be successful) they’re not only learning about the task at hand, but they’re learning about who they are and how they go about figuring things out. In our rush to try and get everything in, we’ve forgotten that children learn by doing. It’s no wonder there’s talk by some of hurry-up-and-get-it-done.īut when getting done takes precedence over the doing, when finishing becomes more important than the figuring out, we’ve lost sight of why we became teachers in the first place we’ve lost sight of what we know to be true. As a result, teachers everywhere are making Herculean efforts to fit everything in. We’re bombarded by demands and directives deemed by others as necessary and non-negotiable.

It’s true that teachers have never been under more pressure.

Luscious feeling? Endless time? Come on girlfriend, get real!” They tell me they love the idea, but with all they have to teach and all their kids need to learn, “There’s no way,” they say. Sometimes when I talk with teachers about creating “the luscious feeling of endless time,” they look at me like I’ve lost my mind.

Touch base meaning