Small Group Instruction

Small group instruction strategies are monumentally important for differentiation in the classroom. I am not kidding when I say that my small group reading lesson plans were non-existent and I had no idea how to plan an engaging and fun guided reading activity. Those days are long-gone and my small group reading instruction has changed dramatically. In this post, I hope to convince you to start using targeted small instruction ASAP and give you a list of teaching strategies and resources for small group.

You will hear the terms targeted small group instruction and guided reading used interchangeably. However, they are different but because they are usually done simultaneously, this mix of phrases occurs. Here is how I distinguish the two terms.

Guided Reading is a small group that focuses on reading and reading strategies. This can include phonics and phonemic awareness as components as well as comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency.

Targeted Small Group Instruction is when you pull a small group and focus on a specific skill such a phonemic awareness, phonics, alphabet awareness etc. You can also have targeted small group instruction for math that will sometimes be referred to as guided math.

Are you confused yet?

When you pull a small group for a small group activity to your guided reading table, you will most likely be doing BOTH of these things which is why teachers will usually interchange these terms. You may see this happen through this post as well! I do it too even though I know there is a difference. It is perfectly okay.

Best Practices in Guided Reading

Back in 2014 when I got my first classroom, I didn’t pull small groups. I was just trying to survive as most first-year teachers can relate. But after that first year, I really began researching best practice for small group activities and best practices in guided reading and eventually came up with my own routine for small group instruction.

Your lower students’ routine will look quite a bit different than your readers. I want to save an in-depth look at each for other posts because I could write entire posts on small group instructional strategies for early emergent readers, emergent readers, and so on. That brings me to another point. There is a ton of verbiage associated with reading levels of our students. You’ll hear them referred to as pre-reader, reader or level aa and level A and so on. Essentially, I want to give you a quick look at my routine for each.

Here is a quick snapshot of the my guided reading routine, although each level looks different.

Level AA Pre-Reader

Warm Up-This includes flash cards to say (not sing) each letter of the alphabet or an alphabet chart where the student will point to each letter as we say it together.

Word Work- This will consist of name work mostly at this level. I will also sort letters based on attributes such as circles, sticks and slants.

Reading- Some people leave this part out of small group for their pre-readers. I think it is so important to expose the earliest readers to books. They can read alphabet readers with a format of a is for apple. /a/ /a/ apple. Even lower than that, they can read pictures. A rebus sentence with tracking dots is perfect. This gets them used to tracking build their foundation for reading.

Writing- This will also consist of name work mostly. If that is too difficult then I like to focus on letter formation. Lines, circles, slants etc. These children may need fine motor assistance and this is also a good place to do that. You may also work on pincher grasp with tweezers or pencil grip.

Level A-B

Warm up- Vary with alphabet charts, alphabet flash cards, and sight word flash cards.

Word Work- I focus or word families or sight words. I like to use sight words more in sentence building than word work. I utilize magnetic letters for word families and will hit SO MANY SKILLS. For example: “let’s work on the -at family. Can we add a /c/ sound? Can you find that letter? What word did we make now? /c/ -at Let’s blend those sounds. /c/ -at , cat. Can we change the /c/ to another sound? What about /m/? What word can we make now? /m/ -at, mat. These words sound the same at the end, don’t they? Let’s say them. Cat, Mat. Words that sound the same at the end are rhyming words! All words in the same family will rhyme.

We just covered word families, initial sound, blending, chunking, rhyming and substitution. This part is so much fun for the kids too! I definitely suggest a cookie sheet with magnetic letters in their place to make finding letters easier. Otherwise, this process will take too long.

Writing- My go-to for writing will probably ALWAYS be sentence building. You make hear this interchanged with mix and fix sentences also. We have a sentence that includes our sight word focus for the week such as, “I see the pig(pictured.) We build the sentence, write it, and then draw it. This is one of their favorite things to do because it includes dry erase markers!

Level C-D

Warm Up- This will include sight flash cards or perhaps a blends chart and is usually fairly quick because these are my readers.

Word Work- I still use word families sometimes but with another layer of complexity. We add blends, digraphs, and long -e. I also let them do a lot more leading and generating with these words versus leading them along.

Reading- This is where we build fluency and use our guided reading strategies such as eagle eye, lips the fish, and so on. I don’t introduce all of them at once. It’s a little bit over time. I don’t just tell them a word when they get stuck if I can help it. Point to the strategy or ask a question to make them use their strategies. I may ask, “what is the first sound? What if you cover the first part? Is there a chunk that you know?” etc.

Writing- Sentence building for the win! However, the sentences are more complex and I have them spell or sound our the unknown picture word in the sentence. This group can also benefit from more in depth writing. Ask them to write about their real-life connection to the leveled reader. For example, ” Can you write about when you went to the store like our character?” You can ask them what they want to write and draw the lines on the paper and let them write each word.

Small Group Resources

I know that was fast and furious and I may do a more in depth look at small group instruction in a later post but this is a great place to get started understanding and implementing guiding reading strategies in your classroom. As a matter of fact, I want to give you some of my guided resources that I use for free. These are some reading strategy posters that I use.