Each day during our writing time I spend at least half the time conferring with students while they're writing. I ask them questions about their writing, make suggestions, show them examples, and give them tools to help their writing grow. The one thing that has helped me the most as a teacher is to have a pre-assembled writing toolkit kit that I can take with me from student-to-student and help them grow as writers while they work!
To create a conferring kit, you need some simple materials. These materials may change a little bit depending on the grade level you're working with, but many of the materials will remain the same.
I began by choosing this crate to store all my materials in. It is small enough to carry from table-to-table with me, yet big enough to hold everything I need in my kit. You will need craft sticks, wiggly eyes, labels, pull back cars, notebook, golf pencils, sight word cards, sticky notes, pens or pencils to record with, and a stapler.
I began by creating some quick wiggly eye sticks to help my students remember to put spaces between words. I placed a small dot of glue on one end of a craft stick and glued on one wiggly eye. I left these overnight to dry. I created 10 of them; enough to let a few students borrow them as needed, but not so many that they rely on them each time they write.
After I created my wiggle eye sticks, I started creating my conferring notebook. I used just a plain composition notebook. I chose to leave mine plain instead of decorating it since I didn't want to distract my students as they worked. I used the labels to create a section of the notebook for each student. I placed a sticker and then added an additional sticker to the back of the first one to create my tabbed dividers. I then used a permanent marker to write each student's names on the tabs. I left 3-4 pages in between each tab so I would have plenty of room to record my observations about their writing. There are plenty of pages left at the back of the notebook, so as I get new students or need extra pages, I can create additional tabs and keep collecting information.
My students love when they need help stretching out a word because I always have a pull back race car in my toolkit that can help us! We push the car forward as we say the sounds in the word slowly and the student writes down the sounds that they hear in that word. If we need to hear some sounds again, we back the car up and say the word again. These little cars make a task that is sometimes overwhelming for a beginning writer a little more fun!
The next item I included in my toolkit are some golf pencils. I love to use golf pencils with my students the first semester because they are shorter and encourage my students to perfect their pencil grip. I keep a stash of golf pencils with me at all times so that I can swap out a student's normal pencil if I notice them struggling with their pencil grip.
I then added in some sticky notes into my kit. I use sticky notes to leave my students notes without writing directly on their paper. I can quickly jot down a letter or punctuation mark they need help remembering or a vowel combination I have just introduced to them. I will often use them to help a student remember how to form a letter or how to spell that one tricky word they are stuck on. Sticky notes are a great way to leave a little message behind after you have reviewed a students' writing and to offer some encouragement as the student continues to write.
Finally, I included some sight words that my students and I can quickly reference when I'm sharing a new skill for them or we just want to include the right word into their writing. These cards are easy to remove from the ring so I can leave them with a student while they're writing.
Later on in the year, I also include a stapler in my writing toolkit. Having a stapler handy is great as we move into bookmaking and story telling so I'm able to quickly staple my students' work together. When I confer with students, I try to visit with 3-4 students a day, but sometimes I only make it around to 1-2 students. I make quick notes in my notebook about what writing behaviors I noticed with the student and include suggestions for the next writing tip I want to share with that particular student. I'm then able to look back at the skills I have already introduced and revisit them if I notice they need to keep practicing certain skills. I can also track their progress as writers and share that information with their families during conference times. Conferring kits are simple to put together and are a very helpful tool in helping your students grow into amazing writers!
