How to build confidence by choosing the right skills for Sneak Peek conferences
Building confidence for kids, can either make or break the first few weeks of your unit. Especially before you launch a new reading or writing unit. You want your students feeling confident to take on the challenge of many new reading or writing skills. Of course, you want them feeling excited, not defeated before the new unit even begins. Before I share how to build confidence, I have a question for you?
What makes your students feel defeated?
Your students are super smart, in that, most of the time they know when something is hard for them. Or when they just aren’t getting it. Especially when they see their friends understanding it right away. They try these reading or writing strategies you’re teaching them. But for some reason they just can’t seem to get it right. Then they start to internalize their feelings and/or abilities like…
“This is too hard.”
“You kidding me…I’m never going to get this.”
“I’m not smart enough.”
I bet you’ve heard these words from your students sometime in your teaching career.
How can we combat these negative feelings?
Now let’s fast forward to launching a new unit with your students. Some students are entering into a new unit with these negative thoughts right off the bat. This is a prime time where you can build confidence in your students. There are many reading & writing skills that build upon each other, much like, a learning progression does. When students know they can’t do a certain skill or strategy; they may start doubting themselves. They might start believing they won’t be able to do the next one. So…this negative trail of “I can’t do this” continues.
How can we combat these negative feelings our students are having? It starts with building confidence and self-esteem before launching a new unit. Sneak peek conferences can really help to break this chain of “I’m not going to be able to do this” before you launch a new reading or writing unit. It’s time to build confidence, my friend.
The main purpose of Sneak Peek conferences is to build confidence.
Teaching skills through sneak peek conferences can really help your students who might feel completely lost in a complicated mini lesson. These types of conferences provide students more time or repetition of a strategy that might prove to be more challenging. One way to build confidence is to help these students feel like they are “in the know”. You will want to do this before you teach those challenging skills and strategies. Sneak peek conferences can help you do that.
These types of conferences do not need to be very long. You can do a really good one in 3-5 minutes. This is one of the reasons why I love them so much. I can meet with a lot students. Plus, I feel good about what I accomplished in reading & writing workshop that day.
What are the components of a Sneak Peek conference?
There are 5 main components of a Sneak Peek conference:
👉1: Compliment: Share 1 skill or strategy that your student already knows how to do. This should be related to the sneak peek skill you are going to teach them.
👉2: Connect: Give a very brief overview of the unit or mini lesson that you are planning to teach the class.
👉3: Sneak Peek: Name the new skill or strategy that might be challenging for students in the upcoming unit or mini lesson.
👉4: Active Engagement: The student practices the new skill or strategy with you.
👉5: Link: Retell the overview of the unit or mini lesson. Next review the new skill or strategy. Lastly, share how to practice the skill one more time.
Here's 2 free conference forms!
Inside my Students at the Heart of Assessment workbook there are 2 Sneak Peak conference forms (one for reading and one for writing). You can take notes when you are doing this type of conference with students. This will help you plan out what you are going to compliment them on. You can also write down what sneak peek skill or strategy you are going to teach. Plus, you’ll be able to take notes on what you notice in the active engagement part of this conference. When the conference is over, there’s a spot for you to write down your next steps for that student. For example, what is the goal, skill, or strategy you need to teach next. So, grab my workbook to get those 2 conference note-taking forms.
Need even more note-taking forms? Inside my Reading & Writing Workshop Conferences Forms, there are conference forms for 9 different types of conferences (including the Sneak Peak conference). Also, there are trackers and a weekly conferring schedule template. Have a good note-taking system right by your side. You’ll be more efficient and you’ll meet with more students.
How do you determine which skills to choose for a Sneak Peek conference?
Here is where you can be very strategic with your sneak peek conferences. You can plan out ahead of time who you are going to meet with, and which skills you are going to target. Just follow these 4 STEPS and you will be on your way to building confidence for kids.
👉1: Narrow down to 3-5 main goals or objectives for your upcoming unit.
👉2: Identify the skills that will help meet those main goals or objectives.
👉3: Pinpoint the students you feel will have a hard time learning these skills in a mini lesson. You can use assessments, student work, conferring notes, or observations etc.
👉4: Create your weekly conferring schedule that includes a series of sneak peek conferences. Make sure to meet with these students sometime BEFORE you launch the new unit.
Let me show you how I build confidence by choosing the right students for Sneak Peek conferences.
I’m going to use my 2nd Grade Series Book Club unit as an example here.
1: Narrow down to 3-5 main goals or objectives for your upcoming unit.
My upcoming unit is Series Book Clubs. The 3-5 main goals or objectives for this unit are:
- Getting to know characters really well.
- Becoming an expert on the author’s craft, by uncovering the moves the author uses to hook readers into the series and link the books together.
- Invent ways to share their opinions about their series books they loved the most with others.
2: Identify the skills that will help meet those main goals or objectives.
Here is the first skill: Become an expect on characters, my students would need to learn the following skills:
- Previewing the text
- Collecting information about the main character
- Compare & contrasting
- Making predictions
- Envisioning
The second skill: Become an expert on the author’s craft, my students would need to learn the following skills:
- How to study ways authors use word choice, figurative language, punctuation, and even patterns to construct their series
- Talk across the series in their book clubs
- Compare & contrast from book to book
My third skill is: Invent ways to share their opinions about their series books, my students would need to learn the following skills:
- Think of ways to share their own opinions
- Communicate why they fell in love with the book
- How to hold a debate inside of their clubs as another way to share and grow bigger ideas about books.
3: Pinpoint the students you feel will have a hard time learning these skills in a mini lesson. I will use assessments, student work, conferring notes, observations etc.
Since this is a new unit launch, I’m just going to look at the first big goal that I’m going to teach first. My first goal is becoming an expert on characters. Now, I’m going to look at my class of students as a whole. Then, look at the skills I’m going to teach to help them become an expert on characters. I know there are 3 students that will have a hard time with comparing & contrasting. I have 5 students who will have a hard time with envisioning.
4: Create your weekly conferring schedule that includes a series of Sneak Peek conferences with these students sometime BEFORE you launch the new unit.
I have identified a total of 8 students that I will need to do a Sneak Peek conference with. It’s time to create that weekly conferring schedule. These conferences I like to incorporate the week before my launch if possible. I’m going to balance these conferences with other small group work throughout the week. This will maximize my time so I can meet with as many students as possible.
Now are you ready to try out these Sneak Peek conferences? Or how about this one? Are you ready to start building confidence and self-esteem BEFORE you teach a series of mini lessons. Your students will likely feel more confident and excited to take on the challenge. They are now familiar with the skill BEFORE you teach it.
Okay, my friend…go ahead and hop to it and let me know in our Literacy Teacher Greatness Community how Sneak Peek conferences are going. I would LOVE to help you on your journey to using a variety of conferring methods both 1-1 conferences and small groups.
I’ll see you in the group,
I'm Desirée McGee-Greene
I help literacy teachers & coaches use the best reading & writing conferring methods and strategies to reach ALL their students EVERY SINGLE WEEK.
You can get to know me a little better here.
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Hop on over to our Literacy Teacher Greatness Community because that's where I'll be and I want to be your coach & cheerleader every step of the way!
In this EDITABLE Adobe PDF, there are conference forms for 9 different types of conferences PLUS strategy trackers for partnerships, small groups, and a weekly conferring schedule template to help you balance 1-1 conferences and small group work.