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
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...
Rule of 3: Mini-Group After Whole-Class Lesson
I often ask students who might want a little more information or help after a whole-class lesson to stay for a small group. These "mini-groups" are an important part of...
Fonts: Small Group and Conferring with Intermediate Writers
In this follow-up to a whole class lesson and discussion on fonts, Franki Sibberson pulls together a group of third and fourth graders from her class who have asked to...
Flexible Grouping: When, How, and Why
The topic of grouping for literacy, especially any grouping that involves sorting children according to their abilities, is charged politically and can polarize teaching communities. The key in my classroom...
Flexible Groups: Moving Beyond Levels to Assess Reading Needs
In the past, flexible groups really weren't that flexible in our classrooms, especially when we based the groups on students' reading levels. For years we said, "Yes, of course we...
Organizing Writing Groups
Many times I'll form a writing group based on what I'm noticing as I observe children in writer's workshop. They will tell me what they need in conferences, or I'll...
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...
Noticing Interesting Words: Small-Group Vocabulary Lesson
In this five-minute video, Gail Boushey leads a short small-group lesson on vocabulary. In the debrief after the lesson, Gail talks with Joan Moser about vocabulary instruction and the importance...
Boys’ Book Club in Second Grade
"The girls started it." That's how Linda remembers book clubs were born in second grade. Two girls had become interested in the Warriors series by Erin Hunter and...
Forming Groups Using a Planner
It was late October, and I was feeling great about my one-on-one reading conferences. I was listening more than I was talking, taking succinct but valuable notes, and feeling like...
English Language Learners First-Grade Guided Group
Stella Villalba leads a guided reading group for first-grade English language learners, beginning by building vocabulary.
