Guiding Groups
How many? How often? How to assess? What's the teacher's role? We share flexible and creating strategies for leading groups, and teaching students how to partner and work well with classmates independently. Resources include everything from planning and assessment forms to scores of video examples of groups in action at many grade levels.
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First Grade Guided Writing Group: Goldilocks and the 3 Writers
In this video of a first-grade guided writing group, Katie DiCesare works with three girls on spelling issues that have emerged in their writing.
4th Grade Small Group: Writing Paragraphs
In this video, Aimee Buckner uses a mentor text to demonstrate how writers construct lively nonfiction paragraphs.
4th Grade Small-Group Lesson: Dialogue
One of the challenges of working with intermediate writers is helping them understand how and when to use dialogue in their writing. In this video of a small-group lesson, Aimee Buckner uses a mentor text and a metaphor to help her 4th grade students understand the value of using dialogue sparingly in their writing.
5th Grade Strategy Group on Summarizing
In this strategy group, Karen Terlecky brings together three of her 5th graders to reread a nonfiction article shared with the whole class. They discuss main ideas, and do a writing activity together to build summarizing skills.
Sports Writing Group Discussion
Franki Sibberson finds sports writing is a powerful motivator for boys in her grades 3-4 classroom.
Teaching Inferring with Picture Books Part II: Partner Shares
Katie Doherty’s 6th grade students discuss the read-aloud through partner shares.
Rule of 3: Mini-Group After Whole-Class Lesson
In this second video of a three-part series showing a teaching progression for the Rule of 3, Aimee Buckner has asked students who might want a little more information or help after the whole-class lesson to stay for a small group.
Fonts: Small Group and Conferring with Intermediate Writers
In this follow-up to a whole class lesson and discussion of fonts, Franki Sibberson pulls together a group of 3rd and 4th graders from her class who have asked to be a part of a small group on fonts.
Flexible Grouping: When, How, and Why
Max Brand explains how daily student grouping can be both planned and spontaneous.
Flexible Groups: Moving Beyond Levels to Assess Reading Needs
Gail Boushey and Joan Moser (“The Sisters”) discuss how their thinking has evolved when it comes to flexible groups. The article includes a video excerpt of Joan working with a group of kindergartners.
Organizing Writing Groups
Franki Sibberson describes how she organizing writing groups in her grades 3 and 4 classroom, and shares a video of a writing group considering leads.
Small Group Instruction: Inferring Focus
In this example of reading instruction with a small group, Gail Boushey of “The Sisters” leads a discussion of inference, using Peter Rabbit as a focus text. All of the children in the group are reading at different levels independently, but they share a goal of learning more about inferring.
Noticing Interesting Words: Small-Group Vocabulary Lesson
In this five-minute video, Gail Boushey leads a short small-group lesson on vocabulary.
Boys’ Book Club in Second Grade
In this video from Linda Karamatic’s second-grade classroom, boys discuss the book Fudge using the protocol provided by Linda.
Forming Groups Using a Planner
Dana Murphy explains how her small-group planner is an essential tool for organizing groups in her fourth-grade classroom.
English Language Learners First-Grade Guided Group
Stella Villalba leads a guided reading group of first-grade English language learners, beginning with building vocabulary.
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