For Small-Group Foundational Skills, the “Small-Group Placement Assessment” will tell you where to place students.
For Small-Group Comprehension, we recommend that students be placed where they are able to read a text with 98–100% accuracy. The rigorous instruction requires that they are able to read with a high degree of accuracy and, as the instruction progresses, that they are able to read some sections of the text independently.
We acknowledge that there is wide variation in the number of students in each class and the amount of time available for instruction. Small-Group Reading lessons are designed for small groups with up to six students with each group meeting three times a week. You will need to decide how many reading groups to have, how many students to place in each group, and how many times to meet with a group each week based on the needs of your students. Keep in mind the following considerations:
- While it may be tempting to form a group for each reading level, this will likely result in so many reading groups that you will be unable to meet with each group a sufficient number of times each week. Here are some tips for limiting the number of reading groups:
- If the have more reading groups than you are able to manage, consider putting two groups of students together, and instruct them based on what you have determined the lower group to be. This may seem counterintuitive, but there are almost always differences among students with similar abilities. While students’ reading skills can be strengthened by reading and discussing texts below what they can actually read, it is less likely that students will benefit from attempting to read and discuss books that are too hard.
- If a student’s reading ability falls somewhere between those in two reading groups, place the student in the lower of the two groups.
- If a student’s reading ability is below that of your lowest reading group, consider asking another student, a teacher aide, or an adult volunteer to read the text for that group aloud to the student during or prior to the lesson. Then invite that student to participate in the discussion.
- If a student’s reading ability is far below that of your lowest reading group, this student may require intervention.
- If a student’s reading ability is far above that of your highest reading group, place the student in your highest reading group to give them opportunities to participate in group discussions and to enhance their fluency and comprehension skills. Have the student read harder but accessible texts independently, and meet with them regularly to discuss the texts and to assess their comprehension.
- In addition to considering the number of reading groups in your classroom, consider the number of students in each group. If there are too many students in a group, you will not be able to regularly observe the students and provide individualized support as they read. Moreover, the discussions will be more challenging for you to facilitate and for the students to participate in. If there are too few students in a group, the discussions will not have the benefit of a wide range of thoughts and perspectives. Here are some tips for optimizing the number of students in each group:
- If there are more than six students in a particular reading group, create two reading groups. One group can be composed of the students who will be ready to move on to the next text set relatively soon, and the other group can be made up of the students who will need to spend more time where they are.
- If you have more than six students in a reading group, borrow additional copies of the book from another teacher or from your school or local library so that each student can have a copy, or have a pair of students share a single copy of the book.
- Students learn and progress at different rates, so you may find it necessary to move an individual student into a higher or lower reading group. Consider the following:
- If you think a student is ready to move to a higher reading group, continue instructing the student at their current group until the next-higher reading group moves on to the next text (regardless of where the text falls in the set) to make the transition.
- If a student has completed all the lessons in a set (including any reteaching lessons) and is not yet ready to move on, you might place the student in the next-lower reading group. Alternatively, if another group is ready to begin instruction at the student’s current set, you might move the student into that group and have them repeat the same lessons. If the student continues to struggle, consider evaluating them for intervention.