Choice Lit Topic: 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.
Results
Middle School Book Clubs in Action
Katie Doherty talks about the links between strategy lessons and book club work in her 6th grade classroom. Katie also sits in on a book club discussion.
Words and Images: Mentor Texts for Second Grade Boys
In this conference with two of her second-grade students, Linda Karamatic shares mentor texts and tips to help them with their writing. Both boys are writing stories with strong visual...
Preschool Centers
Centers can be an effective teaching and learning strategy in preschools. In this video, Melissa Kolb shares her rationale for using centers in her Head Start classroom with video examples...
How Do We Structure Small Groups? (Part 3 of the Grouping Series)
Fifth-grade teacher Pam was encouraged by her principal to transition from mostly whole-group instruction to include more small-group instruction, especially in the area of reading. The previous year she'd used...
How Do We Know Small-Group Instruction is Effective?
An interesting question to pose is: Do beliefs change behavior or does behavior change beliefs? Many people think the former: that beliefs change behavior, which is why so many new...
Guiding a Struggling Middle School Book Club
What do you do about those book clubs that just don't jell in your middle school classroom? Katie Doherty demonstrates how she guides a struggling group of sixth graders, helping...
Voila! Best Writing and Entry Slips in Second Grade
The word voila in French literally means "see there." Linda Karamatic put time and reflection into creating a binder, or "voila book," that will ease bulging writing workshop folders and...
Launching a Book Club in 4th Grade
In this video from Andrea Smith's 4th grade classroom, students get organized for a small group author study of Andrew Clements. Watch how Andrea listens carefully to get a sense...
Guided Reading in Perspective
Recently I presented my work at a regional conference. A teacher came rushing to the front of the room as I packed my computer after the session. "Do you have...
Grouping: Who? How Big? How Often?
One of the more vexing dilemmas for teachers is how to group for instruction. No matter how teachers group students, they often wonder if there might be a better way....
Sorting Students for Flexible Groups Across Classrooms
Recently the teachers in my building learned that after receiving district funds for the past five years to support our intervention efforts for struggling students, the funds would be eliminated....
Ready for Guided Reading? A Second Look
Once you've written something, it is out there - forever. Thankfully, we keep growing and changing. We gain more insights, experience, and knowledge. But sometimes this makes us wish that...
One Book/Four Hands: Mentoring Younger Readers Using Picture Books
"Every night before I went to sleep, my mother would read one or two picture books to me. I used to beg her to continue reading, but she always made...
Readers’ Theater Revisited
Years ago, my students and I spent about a month in the spring writing plays in small groups, creating costumes, practicing parts and performing for parents. I felt the need...
Planning Small Groups to Teach Phonetic Skills
As we work with teachers and students in classrooms to plan small-group lessons for at-risk readers, we notice a recurring pattern. Many students can say a particular phonetic rule like...
First Grade Guided Writing Group: Targeting Common Spelling Needs
In this video of a 1st grade guided writing group, Katie DiCesare works with children to address common issues with spelling and conventions. By grouping the students together, she is...
Science Writing: Small Groups
In this second video in a three-part series, Jennifer Morgan leads her grades 3 and 4 students as they work together in small groups on a science and writing task....
When to Group?
Reading groups are such an ingrained element of our teaching culture that teachers can feel guilty if they choose other instructional methods. In this conversation with fourth-grade teacher Rachel, Joan...
Book Clubs: Setting the Stage with Conferring
It was an exciting time in Room 10's readers' workshop. The third graders I worked with over the past year were making the transition from thumbing through beginning chapter books...
Guiding Readers in Kindergarten: A Planning and Assessment Template
"Guided reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty." In Guided Reading: Good First Teaching...
When Does Level Matter? Being Efficient with Small Group Instruction
I find my flexibility as a teacher is both challenged and validated when I group students for instruction. When I think about the wide range of needs in my classroom...
