Students develop their writing skills immensely throughout their elementary years. There are a variety of strategies that teachers use to teach writing skills. Perhaps the most important is conducting writing conferences with your elementary students.
WHY?
Writing conferences give the teacher a chance to talk to each student about their writing. Above all other subjects in elementary school, writing is the subject with the most variety in skill level among students.
Therefore, conferencing with each student gives the teacher a chance to teach a personalized mini lesson to every student in his/her class.
The students will be able to build on their writing skills based on the conference.
WHEN?
Fitting in at least twenty conferences (even if they are 5 mins each) can be difficult. But, it is important to set aside class time to have individual conferences with students.
There are two key times that a writing conference will work best:
- After the students has revised their rough draft and before they start the final copy
- After the student has completed the final copy of the paper
Since students write at different paces, all the students in the class won’t be ready for a conference at the same time. Luckily, this gives the teacher a chance to do a few conferences each day as students finish a certain step in the writing process.
WHERE?
The best place to meet with individual students would be in a quiet place outside the room or in a private area in the room.
Students are self conscious about their writing. They don’t want their classmates to hear all the “mistakes” they have made.
Therefore, let the other students know that when you are meeting with someone, they should not come up to the table to ask a question.
It’s important to give full attention to the student who is in the writing conference.
HOW?
First, the teacher will read through the student’s paper, not making any marks on it. The teacher will pick one or two areas that the student needs to improve on.
Use a sticky note to take notes on each paper, especially if you are reading more than one paper at a time.
To start the conference, the teacher needs to give a compliment about the student’s writing. For instance: great introduction, good use of transition words, excellent descriptions, clear word choice, or amazing conclusion.
Next, the teacher will go into the coaching part of the conference. Give guidance in one to two areas that need improvement. For example: work on the introduction, complete sentences, capital letters, word usage, or adding details.
While conferencing with the student, have them change the areas in the paper right then rather than later.
Sometimes, I give the sentence to the student if they can not think of their own. For example, if a student is struggling with coming up with an introduction. I will give them the introduction sentence.
The hope is the next time they write, they will be able to come up with their own introduction based on my recommendation from the previous paper.
Finally, it is important to give students a note with the areas they need to improve, so they can remember for the next paper they write.
If you are interested in a FREE conference tracking sheet, conference comments, and a note template, just drop your email here, and I’ll send it to you:
WHAT?
Writing conferences will have a positive effect on your elementary student’s writing. You will notice that students will improve in the areas that you conference with them on immediately.
Don’t forget writing conferences with your elementary students can’t just happen once a year! Conferences should happen every time your class goes through the writing process to complete a composition.
Looking for more information on teaching expository writing, here is a blog post: Teaching Expository Writing. I also have a helpful resource in my TPT store for teaching Expository Writing Digitally in your virtual or social distancing classroom.
