Blog #4 Nicole Ashley Conferencing With Focus Group November

Conferencing with my focus group students has been a positive experience for me.  Not only has it provided me with the information I needed to guide my instruction, it has also given me some extra time to spend with these students and really get to know them as readers.  One particular skill I have noticed that most of them struggle with is of course decoding new words.  They seem to come to a word and not know how to attack.  When they attempt to sound out that word, they break each and every sound apart, so that by the time they reach the last sound, they have forgotten the previous ones.  So....I have been reviewing blends in my small group sessions for those that need them and I've already seen an improvement in their decoding ability.  We also talk about finding words "inside" of words that they already know to speed up the decoding process. They can now take small chunks of a word and figure them out so much more efficiently.  I have also been working with other reading strategies that I've noticed as a whole they are struggling with.  We've been looking at picture clues, rereading, skipping the unknown word and reading the rest of the sentence, etc.  I'm trying to get them to decide the strategy to use instead of my prompting them to use a particular one.  It's slow-go, but I think we are making progress.  Their RTI scores are continuing to improve as well, so I think with the extra instruction in the classroom and the small group instruction in RTI they are making gains in their reading.  YAY!!!  I really enjoy conference time.  It's the one time of the day that I feel like I really get to connect with my students.  I think and hope they enjoy it too.