Do you need help planning and preparing effective small groups in your ELA classroom? Are you looking to improve your small group results?
Imagine yourself sitting at the back table, working with your students in small groups, and looking around to see each one of your students engaged in their reading, writing, grammar, and word study centers. The discussions are all related to the ELA activities you planned.
YES, this could be your classroom.
What is a Small Group?
In small-group instruction, you divide your students into groups based on their needs and learning goals.
➡️ You'll work with a few students at a time (at most 6)
➡️ You focus on a specific skill or concept.
➡️ You sit in the Center, and the students sit around the table, where they start getting ready to spend at least 20 minutes working together.
This teaching instruction will allow you to differentiate and meet each student where they are.
Step 1:
Assess & Group:
📋 Assess your students' literacy skills, background knowledge, and critical thinking abilities right from the start of the school year.
📋 Use tools like running records or your school's assessments to determine their reading levels.
Remember, initial groupings can be adjusted as you get to know your students better.
Step 2:
Plan & Prepare
When planning small-group instruction, I use data to make decisions, establish clear goals for each group before planning instruction, and align these goals with grade-level literacy outcomes.
🎯 Objectives: Prepare your lesson ahead of time. A lesson plan template will save you a lot of time. Writing down what you want each group to achieve by the end of the lesson will give you a clear vision of the next step regarding materials and strategies.
🎯 Standards: Make sure that the learning objectives align with curriculum standards and benchmarks to maintain consistency in educational outcomes.
📝 Resources: Choose engaging materials that fit different learning styles and skill levels. Think interactive digital tools, graphic organizers, games, and leveled reading passages.
Step 3:
Prep Your Centers:
While you're working with one small group, keep the rest of your class engaged in meaningful literacy activities. Set up 4 rotating centers:
📘 Reading Comprehension Center: I place a variety of books and leveled questions to challenge this station; they're working on a skill that they have already completed in small groups or the skill of the week.
✍🏻 Writing Center: Monthly prompts, editing tools, and opportunities for peer review. I also have my monthly writing prompts placed in there to help me save time planning and preparing. Read about it here.
⁉️ Grammar Center: This is a Fun Station because I place fun activities such as color by codes or numbers. They review the skill, answer the questions, and color the page. Check out Officer Bella's Letters & Resources
🔤 Phonics Center (for lower levels): Word work games and spelling activities. The phonics stations are for the Low group; it's worth studying for the higher group, and they know they have their work there. I mostly use task cards and bingo games for spelling activities, and I add emoji decoding activities.
Step 4:
Practice Makes Perfect:
Now that the first week is over, we're done with all these fun activities and starting the learning. It is time to model how to move between stations, discuss time frames and expectations, and let students explore each center for a few minutes.
💡 I model how we move from station to station and how I'm expecting them to behave.
💡 I explain the time frame within which each group will have 20 minutes to complete the activities assigned to them.
💡 I go over the rules one more time. We discuss the importance of staying on task and not being interrupted while I'm in a small group and they're in their Literacy Centers until the alarm goes off.
💡 I ask them to pick a name together as a group.
💡 They practice each station for 5 minutes.
Step 5:
Implement & Adapt:
Implementing Small groups, gather them at a round table, kidney table, or on the floor.
📒 Take notes while teaching small-group instruction, which is the perfect time to observe and learn about your students. You could also gather information when students are engaged in small-group activities, such as word building. I always keep my binder next to me, ready and set.
📒 Flexibility is key to successful small-group instruction. Lessons may need to be adjusted to meet student's needs, and groups may change based on student's progress throughout the year.
📒 Collect the data: Assess Students Regularly. This is your guide on what skills to cover next week and how to group students if needed. Gather all the data on your student learning. This information will help you provide targeted instruction to your students.
To learn about the benefits of small groups, check out the Pixie Dust Classroom blog for her insightful post on Setting Up Small Groups for Math Centers in Fifth Grade: A Step-by-Step Guide. Her tips can be implemented in both ELA and Math Classrooms.
Grab the Small Groups Guided Reading Toolkit Below
By following these steps, you'll create a community of learning where every student feels supported and challenged. Small groups are a powerful tool for elevating your ELA instruction and watching your students become readers and writers meeting their learning goals and targets.
Let's make this year the most structured and effective one for you, building it from the beginning.
Happy Planning !☺️
Literacy Tales
Where Stories Come Alive ✏️
This post may contain affiliate links. All opinions are always 100% mine, and I don't work with any product or company I don't use and love.
In the graphic after step 1, it says "asses" instead of "assess!"