Collaborative Inquiry: From Kidwatching to Responsive Teaching Reading Process by Mills and O'Keefe for November (Kathey Tate)

  "  Kidwatching " is at the heart of responsive teaching. Talking is also at the heart of true responsive teaching. Responsive teaching is the conversations that teachers have with the students and the students have with one another. This is the critical difference. When teachers invite the children into the process of conversation, they make space for planning with and for the students.
       The three critical dimensions of collaborative inquiry are teachers knowing students, students knowing each other, and seeing the teachers as readers, writers, and learners. Students knowing and getting in touch with themselves as readers, writers, and learners. The classroom teachers are most responsive when they invite children to construct new insights and share burning questions with one another. It is through capturing and interpreting children's talk that teachers gain power to better understand children's thinking. Teachers promote literacy growth by being deliberate about helping children get in touch with themselves and the process. When children learn to reflect on themselves as readers, writers, and learners to intentionally outgrow themselves, they become reflexive.
        Reflexivity leads to a planned action, which,  in turn, fosters identity and agency in learners. The students are engaged in reflective conversations around reading strategies. The teachers know their students, and the students know each other. The teachers create the curriculum with the students. The students begin to know themselves as readers, writers, and learners.