Literacy Talks

A Big Conversation about Small Group Instruction

• Reading Horizons • Season 5 • Episode 2

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There is new interest in small group instruction as a key component of early literacy learning. Some educators are talking about skipping the small groups. Others have important ideas about making small group instruction better and more effective.

In this episode, our hosts explore strategies and tactics for organizing, supporting, and evaluating small group instructional time. From carefully grouping students as their skills grow to using technology and audiobooks, this in-depth look at small groups will give every educator new ideas and important insights into making small groups BIG contributors to student progress. You may even want to gather a small group of colleagues to listen to this episode!

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Narrator:

Welcome to Literacy Talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. Brought to you by Reading Horizons, Literacy Talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights and practical strategies that will help all learners retreating proficiency. Our series host is Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Joining Stacy are Donell Pons, a recognized expert in literacy and special education. And Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author and speaker. Today we're turning our attention to small group instruction and how to maximize the way small groups work in literacy learning. Get ready for some big ideas for small group learning strategies. Let's get started.

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to another episode of literacy talks. I'm Stacy Hurst. And I'm joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny. And today we have a another really great topic to discuss. I've actually been looking forward to this all weekend, Lindsay, it is your topic. So I'll let you introduce it, we can get started with it.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Thank you. Hello, everyone. I want to apologize if my voice sounds a little funny today, because I'm recovering from a cold. So I apologize for that. I'm excited, we are going to talk about small group instruction, we're gonna talk about all the things how you guys do small groups, your opinions on it, that kind of thing. And I want to introduce this by just sharing something I read in Facebook group, where someone had, you know, some of that ask something about small group, like, what are you having your other students doing while you're teaching small groups. And this was one of the responses. Someone said, Skip the small groups, and everyone gets more direct explicit instruction, provide lots of opportunities to respond and checks for understanding, lots of engagement, lots of active engagement, and corrective feedback and whole group instruction is where it's at. And this had tons and tons of likes, right. And then, you know, someone else had said, I think small groups are good and kindergarten, but the higher you go, I think it's best to teach whole group, kids get into terrible bad habits when they're left on their own. So I wanted to start with your opinions and thoughts, like, after listening to those comments. What are your thoughts about them? And what are your opinions of small group instruction? Stacy, hello,

Stacy Hurst:

I'll go ahead, because that was a an important part of my day as a teacher. And I think, as the years have gone by everybody, that you just read from that post has a point, right, it's always just a matter of how much and to whom we are giving this instruction. One thing that I think is really important, when we talk about research based evidence based practices, they did mention this direct instruction with feedback is critical. But I and also engagement unless you can certify that all of your students are going to be as engaged as they would be in a small group situation, then I still say we need small group instruction. I do agree, however, that the better your whole class instruction is, that impacts your small group instruction, may that be that you don't need as much of it or it can be refined, right, depending on student need. But I also think, I also agree with the older the students, maybe the less is, the less of that kind of a structure is necessary. In a in a classroom situation. I could be wrong about that I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. But I think it's critical for those early foundational skills, that students have opportunities to meet in small groups to be more engaged to get more feedback from the teacher and more assessment, frankly, from the teacher. In those situations.

Donell Pons:

I think I'm probably going to weigh in somewhere in between the both of you. I think it's really important, you've already made some very important points. And one is that whenever you're developing a group or working with a small group, what is being taught is very important, and who is in that group and why. Right, the backgrounds of the students that are in that group. And then I would add to that, what was taught tier one to the whole class as well. All of those things are really important and they work together in order to make that small group instruction effective. I also think because I work with all There are students typically, and I have worked in settings in middle school and high school. This is a really, this was a great conversation. Because oftentimes, in a whole class situation, say in an English class, you have so many varying levels of, of skill, and where the students are at with those particular skills in writing and reading, that there really isn't an opportunity for those students to receive the kind of direct explicit instruction with feedback that they need in order to still make progress. Because that's my thing, too, is that every student still needs to make progress. And so if we say to ourselves that if you get to a certain age or you're in a certain grade, you no longer need certain kinds of instruction, what you're really saying is for certain students who haven't reached that level, there's no progress. Right. So if this is a really interesting conversation, I'm glad you started it. Just some early thoughts.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah. Great. Thank you. I, I love what you both had to say. And I, this person, the first, you know, one that I read here, so many good quotes in the art, so many good points, I should say. And what they said were, provide lots of opportunities to respond yes, checks for understanding, yes, lots of active engagement and corrective feedback and whole group instruction is where it's at. But the part I disagree with was the first part where they said, Skip the small groups. That part I really feel strongly about because I feel like lose my small group instruction is such an important part of my day. But I say that not saying that it replaces any whole group, because I'm very serious about my whole group instruction. Like, I, it's so important. And I agree with everything this person says about that direct explicit instruction and the feedback and everything. But I feel like I can give more individualized feedback in small groups. So I would never say skip the small group, I would say, be careful not to do too much time there. Maybe. And I don't know if this is true, but I hear people I was in some kind of webinar. And the presenter was saying that people were doing two hours of small group. And I was like, yeah, no, that is way too much small group. So that's what some people are talking about. I'd be like, yeah, definitely, you got to rein that back, because we don't want to take away time from our direct explicit instruction. So research about small groups. So there's not a ton of research about small groups. And I actually had, we have an article that we'll share in the show notes. It's called maximizing small group reading instruction. And I actually, there was a listener that reached out to me that sent me this and just said, Hey, can we talk about this? And I love that. I'm like, Yes, this is such a great topic. So we'll link that so you can refer to it. And in that article, they talked about how there's not a lot of research on small groups, like we're not aware of a study that compares a school who does small group, and then those who don't, and the difference, right, but it talks about how there is research about differentiation. We know that that works. There is research on targeted interventions, which is something you could do in, in small group, right. So in something it said in this article was that small group instruction is expensive. So what do you guys think that means when it says that small group instruction is expensive?

Stacy Hurst:

Well, I think it's important to frame this too, because I heard this in a conference presentation, and it made me reframe how I thought about small group time, it is a strategy not a time of day. So when you were saying that somebody has two hours of small group time, of course, we have to schedule for that strategy, just like we would any other. But it depends highly on which students need it. So what was your question? When do Sorry, just if the

Lindsay Kemeny:

small group instruction is like, how, what does that mean? If it's a yes,

Stacy Hurst:

good question. I love that question. Because you are at risk at compromising some things with other students during that small group time, right? Like, what are they doing? Are they just wasting time? Or are they just not doing something that will help them progress? That's expensive it depending on what you do in your small group time, it could take you the teacher more time to prepare for those small groups. So it's expensive, maybe maybe in preparation time, but I think those are two of the ways that it could be expensive.

Donell Pons:

I'm also thinking about with a small group instruction, sometimes there's the the idea that this requires additional training or that I need some specialist. In order for this to happen, right. I think that's oftentimes associated with small group as well. And to that I often say what is More expensive, allowing a student to continue to move forward without receiving the instruction that that student needs in order to become a proficient reader and writer, is that less or more expensive than then pushing them forward and requiring support after support after support for years to come? Right? So, obviously, to me, that's the easy answer, no, helping that student earliest you can, the best you can, in their educational career is less expensive, clearly. And then, of course, all the compounding factors that come later if you don't assist a student right and help them. So to me that that expense because I've had this conversation before heard it said in many different ways, it's so expensive to provide certain kinds of instruction or the training that that requires, so on and so forth about how expensive it is. And but then always it comes back to how much more expensive it is, when you allow a student to continue to struggle year on year. And then the intervention, as we know from research becomes even more difficult in order to get students past a certain point. So I don't know if I'm that expense thing. I think we could look at that so many different ways. And I could come up with many, many arguments to say that that's not exactly true. It could be less expensive to do it this way. So I don't know if I'm buying the expense argument on the small group. Okay,

Lindsay Kemeny:

well, I love that I didn't think about it like long term thinking about specifically for this the student. In the article, it talked about three ways, which I think we kind of touched on three ways the small group could be considered expensive, and that was because it costs a lot of time, that costs a lot of planning and management. And so we were kind of talking about those things like it does, it does take time. And that's like that person's argument why they were saying to skip the small group, right? Because that takes time away from the direct explicit instruction. So that was their point. Right? But I think we're all three of us like, well, they need that explicit instruction. Plus, they need the small group that that supplemental, right, and then planning. Yeah, that can be a lot because you're you have to not only plan what you're doing in the small group with students, but then you have to plan what other students are doing. And I feel like, I don't know, my centers were so much more, a lot more work. And I kind of had to streamline it and make it really simple and stay the same every day, so that we didn't have all these things. And today, we're going to do this in the center, and I gotta get this ready. And so now, like, it's hardly any planning for me, and then management is a huge one, I think you need you do need to have really good management in order to have effective centers like Stacy, you were saying, it could be a waste of time, depending on you know, what, what the students are doing? So I think this kind of leads into my next question, which is just like, What are some common mistakes with the small group instruction, like we talked about, one would be planning on two hours, you know, that sounds like maybe someone that's more using like a workshop where I do a little mini lesson, and most of the instruction is going to be, you know, in small group. So what are some, you know, maybe common mistakes, or maybe just some warnings that you would have when teachers are doing small group instruction.

Donell Pons:

So right off the bat, and I appreciate you bringing up those other challenges that people mentioned about the cost or how it can be expensive. So here again, though, let's take a look at when you say planning for small group instruction, and that's just it, a plan for small group instruction doesn't just happen. You don't just decide, oh, somebody does it this way. So I'm going to do it that way. You look at the students that you have you look at the things in which need to be taught and where those certain challenges might be. And that's how you start to configure. So it's a real planned thing. The other part of the planning is that you're going to make sure students are making progress within the small group. So I think that's a really important part of this conversation, as well as small groups aren't just for small groups sake, you are teaching specific things and you want to see progress occur for students within those small groups. So again, this is that cost benefit analysis that you do as well. If I can accomplish something within my classroom for students in a small group setting, how much does that really over time, save the school if I don't have to reach out for additional resources because I was never able to help that student make up some ground if I were able to offer a small group setting so I mean, these are lots of things that come into play when we're talking about exactly how you put together a small group but I would say plan and plan for also progress within the small group setting. Stacy probably has a lot of good thoughts too.

Stacy Hurst:

Well my very first thought was the way you group students and I think I like you were saying Lindsay, it takes a lot of management to do small groups well, and the first part of my career I spent a good amount of time making sure that was in place. And I landed on a you know different way to manage that whole thing the whole time but grouping is probably the biggest mistake I made without knowing it because I was doing, leveled, you know, based on their level. And again, that was the the leveling system that shall not be named levels. But I did have assessment as part of that. And I think that's an important point, actually, my assessment was to use an outdated term on fleek. So good. I had a binder I was assessing. Regularly, I knew when to move a student to the next level. The problem was, I did not have high quality instructional materials initially, until I learned a few things after reading the national reading panel. So I think the first mistake is how we group students, and that should be by skill, right? And so that will change. They don't stay the same. And then the other thing is not including the content, what you're teaching in those groups, making sure that it's high quality instructional materials. Okay,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I want to follow up a little more on that, because you said like that big common mistake is leveling students. And there's no research for this differentiation by by text levels. So Stacy, what do you think is? What's the problem with that? What's the problem with leveling students? Because I did that, too, is like, Okay, this is my group, my level F group, here's my level, H group, here's my level k. So let's talk about what's wrong with that.

Stacy Hurst:

Well, now that I know what actually needs to happen in the brain for a proficient reader to emerge, that actually in those levels, we're not giving them what they need, right? Those levels were false, they were erroneous. And so we were building essentially, a whole castle on sand, that we thought we could rely on that, right, because we're teaching them things like guessing based on those levels. That's how the books, the very leveling system, was set up. So I would say that was problematic because we weren't addressing that type of instruction and practice opportunities with feedback that would facilitate orthographic mapping, which again, in the long term, is way more efficient and beneficial. Yeah, I

Donell Pons:

was just gonna agree with you, to Stacy. And then on that upper end, when I start to see the students as they get older, they're aging up, third grade, fourth, grade, fifth, etc, they might have not been found if we've just been looking at reading level because it had so many compensating skills, right. And so they weren't really looking at the different reading skills that the students perhaps were lacking, because they were compensating many of those students were compensating. So oftentimes, by the time I saw student, fifth sixth grade, who was in need of reading, intervention, or support, typically, I'd go back down to look at what was said about the student first, second, third, and they were just swimming in the middle, they were hanging out in the middle, and they weren't really getting found. And so that's another problem with just leaning heavily into a reading level, is that oftentimes a kid can hang out there and you can't see what they need?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, because it's, it's like I didn't understand what do I do to move a child from this level to this level. And we see that there really was a problem with that whole leveling system, there really wasn't a lot of science behind it. What made a book a level J versus a level k, you know, it can be hard. It's an and we especially we know that some students, if they have the background knowledge and vocabulary for certain texts, they might be able to read a harder text. Okay. But that being said, this can be hard for teachers, because it's like, well, but of course, there's some books are harder than others. And I don't want to have students like super frustrated in a book that, you know, if we don't go by any levels, then how do I know what book to choose for the students? Because certainly, some books are too hard. And some books are too easy. So what would you say to that?

Stacy Hurst:

Definitely, in those early grades, it's got to be decodable texts, it's got to be aligned to what you're teaching in that foundational skill instruction. That means phonics, emphasizing phonemic awareness in a small group as well. It could be passages, it could be sentences, you could be doing a lot of different things in small group instruction. The other thing with Fountas and Pinnell, oh, I said, that was very text dependent. I wonder if I still have my binders because they like my word wall. We're a work of art. But I really did have like the elements of each level of text. But as I look back on that, and I could tell you that my students when they scored between 95 and 100%, three times in a row on that level, and moving forward all these things. But again, the problem was that was text base, not what the student could do. And so, in either case, even if you have a text that maybe a little bit, it's decodability is a little bit beyond a student. In small group instruction gives you the opportunity to scaffold for that student so they're not overwhelmed. So they're still progressing at a meaningful rate with high quality feedback, too.

Lindsay Kemeny:

So Stacy, I'm just going to ask a follow up question. So what if they're beyond decodable? Maybe you're kind of hinting a little bit about that. But when if they're beyond they don't need to quotables anymore. So we want regular, authentic texts? How do I choose one? How do I know what's an appropriate level for the student? Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

and again, that goes back to assessment, which is the key factor when we're talking about small group instruction, because not only do you need to know what type of instruction the student needs, but also it will help you with choosing the materials that you use to teach including high quality text. And he had that might have to do with content area instruction might have to do with what the student is interested in it. And again, attending to areas phases, if they're in that consolidated or automatic phase, then you're going to shift your focus from those foundational skills to more content area, knowledge building kind of opportunities

Donell Pons:

So Lindsay, and Stacy, because you're having a for the students. conversation that I think is one we could have for ever, and that is how do you know the right text for the for the student? And at what point? Do you know that? And how do you tell that when you when you see a book, wow, then everybody can spend a long time here. But one thing I do know that I've learned over time, particularly with the students that I work with, because they're older, so I'm working with a lot of students who there isn't a whole lot of opportunity for decodable texts, just let's let's just put it that way, right that that ship sailed. I use it within my instruction and the instructional framework, but they are being expected to approach a lot of different text all the time. That's just the way it is. It's a world they live in. So what do you do? And how do you help the student find something where they can, you know, enjoy a text for a little bit, but then also tackle a much harder text because it's being asked to them by a teacher in a classroom, that all these levels are at play. And really what it comes down to is when you finally get trained, as I finally got trained, and I understood a scope and sequence. And a scope and sequence is so important in understanding exactly how to teach the things in order so that you can build scale. That's what it's about. Right? So looking at that scope and sequence. And really, that is where you get this sense of where your student is at in terms of different kinds of text. And so I know that a student will struggle with a text a certain level, just because I'm aware of what that level is, and generally what's in that text, and where my student is at in terms of the instruction they're receiving. And that's when you start to really get into those excellent places of understanding this is when you've had the training that you've needed, you've got a good scope and sequence at hand, you've been working with that scope and sequence to understand what that looks like on the ground when a student is learning. And then you've been able to work with different kinds of texts at different level. And I'm always very aware and cognizant of, what has a text been rated at whether it was a scholastic level, or what other level, what level has this text been. And I'm always interested in that because I'm learning what that means. Because it can mean a number of things of different publishers. But then you get a general sense of what that's going to look like for a student. And again, if anybody's saying, Well, that sounds like a lot of experience, yes, yes, writing for teachers, and they know this. But a lot of this, you already know, you just maybe don't have the framework or you're learning the framework. It's not, we're not saying scrap everything, what you're really saying is maybe you know, a lot of this stuff, and now that you've been given a framework to put it in, now you can start to see how it works in complement with each other.

Lindsay Kemeny:

There's so many good thoughts, you guys, I appreciate you asking the hard questions, because this is murky for a lot of teachers. And it's confusing, because it's like, well, they said, you know, we don't do level text. And so well, we don't level students, but we still have texts that are leveled. And that can still be a little bit helpful. Because we know, look, this is a sixth grade level text. I'm not gonna give that to my second grader. But you know, maybe my second grader can read a second grade text. But maybe they need a lot more scaffolding than another reader. So it's trying to like match the reader and text is, it can be a little tricky, especially like once you're like, Okay, decodable is I know, decodable is, but now they're moving out of them. What text do I give them? Ah, you know, that's hard. And I think I really like listened to my students when they're reading because if they have a text, and they're like, oh, they resort to guessing a lot, then I know, oh, my gosh, that text was too hard for them. And I need to shift into something else. But it's important not to just like, stamp this level on your students and being like, you only get to read the level J books or that's all I'm going to give you. So no, we're going to switch that focus. You're thinking about the student, their interests, what they like, you know, what they're capable of with help. And so you don't want to limit them by a level, if that makes sense. So, so let's talk about how we set up our groups. You talked a little bit about this, Stacy, shall we? Let's, let's bring that out a little bit. Let's talk a little bit more about that. So how do we set up our groups? What do we do? We're not going to do levels, we're not going to say this is the level J group, this little age group. So what do we do? Instead?

Stacy Hurst:

We're gonna randomly pull names out of a hat. Just kidding. I'm just making sure our listeners are engaged. Hopefully, nobody writes that down and makes a poster of it. We are actually going to use assessment, right? Where you're going to look at our foundational skill instruction, do whatever we're focusing on. If it's, well, it's phonemic. Awareness, it's phonics. It's giving them enough practice and application, right? So we're going to look at assessment data and determine typically, the way that I coach people to do it currently is using something like a phonics survey. And noting what skills your students are proficient with noticing things like, are they better at recognizing the words and spelling the word, listening to your students read will be very important as well, because we're not just talking about the skills, but we also want to give them meaningful practice opportunities. So we need to know how to guide that as well. If you're focusing on fluency, and we've all heard first graders as they move through this kind of phase, where they have zero prosody, maybe they're highly accurate, and the rate is great, but you've got three students who just put people to sleep and they read. So you're gonna say, Hey, we're gonna focus on expression today in our small group, and you're always assessing, but it's a matter of taking that data and utilizing it to your students best interest.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, yeah. Oh, Donell, do you want to share and then I'll share?

Donell Pons:

Oh, I was just gonna say yes, yes to all of this event, and I got a big chuckle out of your comments, Stacy, but probably a bigger chuckle than I should have. I, to your point to Lindsay, you had made the point about not limiting students as well. Because we level the students and then you say, oh, but you can't read outside of this level, that kind of thing. The other thing I want to bring up at this juncture, because I think it's important to remind folks who maybe don't? Or should I, what should I do with this, when you have a student who is obviously maybe they have dyslexia, something's been identified, it's going to take a while to get to that level, right? It's going to take a while we know this, then when you have book reading club, and students can read whatever books and they can come in and take tests on them. Many schools run these kind of book club things and and their points and whatnot, you're reading should be allowed for those students who we know are receiving additional instruction in the skills of reading, to be able to catch up to peers, but yet they're capable of being able to understand those higher level stories. And they need to stay engaged just like every other student. And so your reading also needs to be a part of this conversation in terms of, we asked when I'm working towards trying to approach the skills to be able to read this text on my own. However, at different points, my ear reading may be higher, much higher than what I'm being you know, left with the other thing Stacy saying about being able to hear student rage, it's just number one. Number one is just listening to that student do the thing. You want to give them help doing right. So what do they do when they do that thing. And that also, for me includes different types of texts, I'll have the student reads, so I don't figure that's a one and done if I've heard a student read a text with, you know, dialogue, that may be very difficult and challenging for student, whereas informational text may be their jam. And so it sounds quite different when they read the informational texts, also have them read different types of texts, to get a sense of where the student really is, anyway, just those thoughts. So

Lindsay Kemeny:

important. We talked about that before. And when we were talking about, you know, after we interviewed Dr. Burns, and we're talking about just how important you gain so much information, just by listening to a child read, you need to make sure to do that. And then I'll talk a little bit more about that your ear reading comment, but I'll do that a little bit later, when we're talking about what the other students are doing. When we're working with students, we'll come back to that. So I'll just explain how I set up my groups. And I start with the Acadians data. And so the beginning of the year, we have that Acadians measure that we do, and then I use how they did on that initially. That's what I use to form my groups. And then I kind of switch and move people around as I see they need them even at the beginning or maybe a month or into two months. You know, my groups and that would be my advice, keep them fluid to switch because everyone's going to kind of start doing things that you know different rates.

Narrator:

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Stacy Hurst:

Lindsey, can I just interject a question here? Yeah. So Acadience data, and there are a lot of assessments similar to that, right? How do you look at that data for grouping?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yes, I'm going to share that. So I do letter namings, where they name letters in a minute. And now that's really looking at kind of their processing speed if they know their letters, but I'm also going to see if they don't know their letters. Because if they can't, you know, as I'm giving that, I'll see that they don't know any, I look at that letter naming fluency. And I additionally I do an alphabet assessment for first and second grade. So I'm going to have students that don't know all their letters, I'm going to have them in the same group, because we are just working on that alphabet, then I have groups that have a decoding focus. And when if I have students, and they know almost all their letter names and sounds, they might know all of them or almost all of them, but I'm looking at the nonsense word, fluency. So I'm looking both at how many sounds they were able to get correct in a minute. And if they were able to blend those, I'm going to group those kids together, there's going to be a lot, especially first grade, there's gonna be a lot of those kids. So I'm kind of all group ones that got similar amount of sounds in a minute in a group. And that's what I so then I have some decoding, then I'm going to have some groups that are focused on fluency. So maybe they're they're beyond the decoding like they sounding out, you know, they're good, and they're working on that fluency. And so I'm looking at that, then I'll have groups that are focused more on just building comprehension and vocabulary, because I really, you know, and we're always kind of tuning into fluency too, because we're working on like prosidy and different things. So you just think all my different groups, I kind of have these four main focuses, a group is going to be focused on alphabet knowledge, or decoding fluency, or just building background knowledge and vocabulary. So that's kind of how I think about it. And then when certain things come up, I'll switch and I'm going to pull a group that really struggled with spelling this concept last week, or sometimes I have a group that all are doing backwards B's, and I mean, but they're in different groups. So I'll just pull all the kids that need help with the B's back for a minute, you know, but generally, those four things. So if you're in second grade, you still have that nonsense word fluency that you can look at. And then you're looking at their oral reading their words correct per minute, and that goes, you know, up to eighth grade, so I'm looking at words correct per minute, and I'll group students who have similar words correct per minute and similar accuracy. So some will be really low accuracy. So I know I'm going to have a phonics, you know, focus for them. Some might be accurate, but but slower, so we're just working on fluency in that group. Some are great. So I know, on both measures, so I know, okay, we're going to be working on just, you know, additional fluency, and then the comprehension vocab. So that's kind of that's how I set it up. And like I said, it's not rigid. So I'm not like, well, this student got this score on Acadience, so I can't move them up here. Yes, I can, if I end that happens, like I have a student that started in my, you know, most needy group that has now moves up a couple of groups, and she's in something else. And they don't really know like, I don't call them names or anything, I just call their own names when I have them come back, small group. Okay, so what's the end, I should clarify that how I'm doing this, sometimes people do like a walk to read model, and they're doing their phonics lesson in small group, and there have everyone grade levels, switching students. And, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about small group to supplement what I did, because I teach phonics in whole group. And that could be a whole nother discussion that we probably won't get into. But what kinds of things are you doing with the students you're working with? Let's talk about that first. And then we'll talk about what the other kids are doing. And Donell I'm interested because I know you've talked about small groups with the older students. And I'm kind of interested how you did that or do that. So maybe you want to share first?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, so this is really interesting conversation, because largely, if we're talking about even K through three teachers, finally getting a lot of them access to what they needed to know in order to teach reading with the science of reading. Then if your fourth, fifth, sixth and beyond you didn't receive any instruction, what kids need to become readers, right. And so heaven forbid, you're one of those kids that year on year you're not getting the help you need, and now you're fifth grade and You're hoping somebody's going to finally say, hey, looks like you could use to help with navs probably not going to happen. So the opportunities that I had actually worked in a setting where it was specifically said that I would be running literacy, and help put together literacy teams that would intervene across the grades K through 12. And then also for other, you know, students in different levels. That was unusual to be in a setting like that, what was great about it was to receive an opportunity to how do you really fit that in? And what does it look like? And then also to meet teachers where they were, I mean, you have the whole thing, we ran the whole gamut from stepping into fifth and sixth grade classrooms where teachers are like, why are we talking about basic reading, I don't teach kids to read. That's not what that's not what I do. Yet, by the data here, it says that at least half of the kids in the room are struggling with reading and basic reading skills. That's what the data is telling us. And so those were interesting conversations. And it was interesting when teachers would open the door gladly and willingly and say, hey, look up, and I haven't known what to do and how to I haven't wasn't taught don't have the skill set don't have what I need, what have you got, and then we work together in in those settings. When we work together, we would start out with pulling students in small group to outside the classroom while the teacher ran a whole class group inside the classroom. Now what we tried to do is mirror what the kids were receiving, what are the kids receiving in that whole classroom right now it was instruction in a certain book. And we're going to be doing this well, in the small group, we would take that book, and we would find a comparable down levels that we could find of that same book. And usually these are books that are very popular. And so they had very, they had levels that had been, you know, put together produced for for kids that were getting read on that level. Why? Why is that because we have a reading problem the United States set out to tell us that right there, at any rate would bring those kids out into the small group. And we worked off of skills. So again, it was skills based, we had a scope and sequence those kids have been placed in the group after much testing, as you both have talked about, to make sure what do the kids really need? What are the kids in this group need, because, hey, they're in sixth grade, their time is valuable, too, right? There are things that are being required to learn and will be responsible for to get to seventh grade. And so you're under a lot of constraints that way, yet, you still want the student to finally receive what they need he or she needs in order to move on with the skills to do those jobs, on their own beat be independent. And that was really interesting. So that's how we first started out then what became really interesting to me is that once teachers watched this happening, and saw how we put the groups together, what was happening in the group outside, somebody even come out and observe because they sometimes had an assistant in the room. Then they started developing more small group inside the classroom, which was interesting, naturally picking it up and saying, Well, you know what, I think I could do some of this. And I realized that I have a group here and I could put them in. And I saw teachers doing a lot of that on their own once they saw the modeled right outside their classroom. So that also tells us that that piece about we know and teacher research that if they see it done, and they see some modeling, and they get some support in it, teachers are more than likely able to pick it up. Well, yeah, because they saw that it was working, it was helpful for their students. The other setting was high school, because that gets even trickier when you get into high school. And you're still reading on a second, third, first grade level not unusual. I've even had students that I would I would rate his kindergarten, they were just getting sounds. And they couldn't put they would look at at and not sure what to do with that a T. Yes. And this, these are students in our high schools in the United States, day after day, just so we get that clear, right? This is not an unusual, there's not an exception. I wasn't an unusual school. This happens a lot, unfortunately. And so then what do you do there when you've got a high school student who now has to have so many credits in order to graduate so that you also have to be aware of the credits. And there's an interesting thing in many different states that they will allow a student to swap in English credit for a basic reading. But it can't be in any other grades except 11th, and 12. That was on the books in certain states, right? Crazy Crazy. And so we would find ways, creative ways in order to get those students where they were ninth to 12, into a basic reading class. So they could finally start receiving the skills, basic reading and spelling, and also be able to get credits and not be credit deficient. What that meant is that we'd also then had to have text that was comparable to what was happening in the English class. So that meant we had a relationship with the English teachers. And again, it was sort of a similar deal of doing a small group working with a teacher. But the teachers hadn't been trained in how to do reading. What was interesting, though, is to watch the teachers that would show up outside the door when they had 20 minutes here for this or that lunch here or there and they would show up outside the door and listen in and want to pick up on some of those things as they heard the strategies that we had for helping students take apart words and being able to spell and they thought they were fantastic and could use them in the classroom. So again, it's getting that information in the hands of teachers that kind of gives you an idea of that difficult terrain Once you allow a student to get to a certain age. So

Lindsay Kemeny:

difficult because the older they get, the less likely they have a teacher who understands beginning Reading. So that was really interesting to hear. I'll share what I think about well, for what I'm doing with students who are with me in small group, my number one thing is time in text. I want them reading as much as I can. So this is for the decoding group. This is for the fluency group. This is for the vocab comprehension groups, right? So my alphabet group, maybe I need to, we're going to do some things working on the alphabet, in addition, and then we'll do some basic, you know, some beginning, blending and reading. But the other groups, I want them reading the majority of the time that they're with me, this is the opportunity they have to practice. And I feel like, we usually don't have enough opportunities for students to practice the thing. When I say practice, I don't mean I want them doing worksheets, I want them to practice doing the thing reading. So you know, I'm going to do something at the beginning to get them ready to read the text, like I'm gonna go over any tricky words, you know, we might review word lists of, you know, like, we learned, you know, we're reviewing vowel consonant e today. So in my small group, we're going to practice some of those vowel consonant e words before we get into our text. And then we're going to, you know, read the text. And majority of the time, we're going to read the text. In the article that we were reading, you know, it was talking about how you have a 20 minute group, and some of the teachers that they were only reading for four to six minutes. Oh, that's a problem, right? We want them if we have 20 minute group, we want them reading, I can't remember if it's gave us guidelines in there, I think it might have said 80% of the time. I don't know if anyone remembers that. But anyway, the majority of the time we want them reading. And then when they're done reading, it depends how much time we've had in our small group, but I want to, I might have them write about what they read, or we're just going to talk about it. We don't always have time to write about it, because it depends on the group and how how their readings going. But a lot of them I want to spend lots of time reading. So any other thoughts? Stacy, would you add with what you're doing with the kids in small group, or what you tell your pre service teachers?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and I would say exactly that take advantage of what is limited in whole class instruction. And so again, I feel like a one note song here, but feedback. And that's why having them do the thing, Lindsay, that's so important. giving them feedback in that moment, as they do it, I think is critical. And even if you just add up, the time you alluded to this, if you're only having them read five minutes in that group, then that what if you meet every day in a week, that's just 25 minutes of reading, and that's not sufficient. If you even increase that even, let's just say a 20 minute time frame, and you're reading at least 10 to 15 minutes, you have exponentially improved their exposure to text, and therefore, you know, what needs to happen in the brain for them to become proficient at reading. So yeah, I love that. That's the priority as it should be.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I love that what you said. And it's like, yeah, don't do in small groups as well. Yeah, don't do in small group. But you could do in whole group, right. Except I just thought about this right now, although we do know that some kids need more practice. So like I was saying, I do those wordlists. I do those in whole group with our phonics lesson. But we do it again, in small group, because I know some of them need more practice. And they need me right there to make sure that they're reading every word correctly. And if they need help, right,

Stacy Hurst:

in some instances, too, I've seen pre teaching in small groups being very effective, so that it actually kind of front loads, and impacts your small group instruction going forward. So we've worked with all different grade levels with this, but you'll have those group of students that are continually according to assessment, not where they should be for a typically developing reader. And they're consistent at not being where they should be right no matter the skill, or whatever. So if you take those students and you're able to pre teach them in small group setting, you're still giving them the practice and the application. And you're still, you're just ensuring that they're getting more exposure to that skill. So I think that can be a useful use of time in that situation, too.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Right. I love that. And it can go either way. So you can pre teach or you can just, you know, reteach right. So either way. Okay. So we're almost out of time. But I do want to talk about this last question. What are the other kids doing? So we know we're working with small group, we're going to use assessment, we're going to divide up our students. Oh, I didn't say this. Whoever needs me the most gets me the most. So I don't meet with every group every day. But the ones who need me and are struggling a little bit. I meet with them every day. And then those other ones it emits maybe twice a week. It's maybe once a week if I have some that aren't Uh, you know, very strong and I still there, they're still doing reading and we're still doing our whole group instruction and you know, they're reading there. So it's just whoever needs you the most, make sure you're meeting with them the most. Okay, but what about the other groups? And I know, I know, this might look a little different for you with the one way you said you were coming out of the heart and the teacher was right. So but what are the other kids doing? While you're doing small group? Stacy, do you want

Stacy Hurst:

to start? Yeah, again, I spent a significant amount of time early in my career determining this. And again, I will just give thanks and praise to the National Reading Panel Report. Because initially, I did, I had my students working on things that had to do with each of those areas of instruction. So we had, you know, a fluency activity we had, they were writing, they were reading, this is a time I utilized my paraprofessionals and parent volunteers, I was lucky enough to have those, they were reading to people, they were doing the thing on a little bit more of an independent level, depending on the scale, it's the time of year, I guess, that that is a lot of what they were doing what I didn't have. The advantage of clear back then is the amount of technology that's available now. And so if you have a high quality software program, they could be working independently on that as well, that would ensure either practice or instruction or both, right. So there could be lots of things that they're doing, that's valuable, it's not time to color. It's not, you know, time to do things that wouldn't be forwarding their ability to read.

Donell Pons:

And I agree with Stacy about that quality, what they're doing is quality that's happening to the rest of the class. So and one of my many teaching assignments, I had a high school English class. And these were students that were considered basic English. And again, most of them just needed help with reading and spelling skills, they just had never received the help they needed. So in order to find time within that setting, or to work with students, small group, in order to teach the skill that was needed, we had a novel, it was kind of a novel writing it fit within our curriculum, and it was a novel writing sort of background, you would do character development, you would do setting and so the groups would rotate around doing their character, their setting, as students rotated in and out of small groups. So they were doing something really interesting. That was part of what the whole class would be required to do, while also receiving very specific help with a reading skill, reading and spelling skill that they needed. And I think the students really enjoyed it was kind of interesting, because the remark to them was, I've never been able to take this time to really develop something, an idea that I wanted, usually, you know, it's quick, quick, quick do that page, that one page or that page and a half. And this I really wanted them to do. And we I said we may only write a few pages of our novel, but we're really going to spend time on setting up the novel, we really want to get into character development, and then what's going to take place in that story. So and what it did is it in the end, it gave them all of the things that they needed in order to take some high stakes testing that was all about how a story develops, and that kind of a thing. And in the end, they did really well, which is this is all how you do that. In other words, did I spend time making sure that what they were doing as a group while I was pulling in small group was quality? Yes. But was it difficult? No, it wasn't all that difficult. It just took some planning and coming up with something that fit like I say, within what we were required to do anyway. But even in that setting, I was able to find a way to do it.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Thank you, it's so fun to hear about that in the in the older space. And it sounds like you just have some great things in place. All share mine. So again, this is first grade, but I did it similar in kindergarten. And second, and I'm all about simplicity. Because I want to spend my time like planning or what I'm going to do in might the small groups that I'm meeting with, I don't want to spend a lot of time on the other things. So I have a technology center. And that like Stacy alluded to, that's just going to be you know, our our district has a literacy program that we've purchased that we the students are on that it's great. It's automatically differentiated, right? Everyone's working on their own pace, and I really like the program and that's no prep, they just need their iPad and their headphones. And then they're working in that literacy program. Then back to what Donell was talking about before. With the ear reading I have, it's just the reading center. And everyone has the choice to either read a book or listen to an audio book. They can do either one, most of them listen, sometimes they read sometimes they read with a partner and I'm like, That's great. That's so fun. I've really evolved. I used to be really strict and like, oh my goodness, you need to be quiet at the reading center. And I feel like I've grown because now like I'll look over and I hear Some giggling and there's two little kids heads poring over this book. And they're reading it together and they're laughing. And they're talking a little bit about it. And I just think that's so awesome. I want them to have these positive experiences with books. And so if they spend time browsing the books, I'm fine with that. And I used to be like, No, get your book out and read it. And now I'm like, you know, what, when else do they have time to explore all these books, they might not have all these books at home, and that is fun for them. And I want to build positive experiences with books, you know, and now if I see one student is just never seems to be reading than okay, I'm gonna pull over and be like, Okay, we need to choose or we're usually I'm gonna say, Hey, listen, look at Epic look at all these digital books, you can read them, or you can have them read to you or both, and they're like, Okay, and then they love it, my students love Epic is just like a free digital database of books. So anyways, so that's the reading center. Um, I'll also stick some decodables in there if they want to read decodables. But I don't limited them to that because like I said, if they want to pull out Pete the cat, and they love Pete, the cat, and they're going to spend some time browsing, looking at the pictures and retelling the story, even though they're not reading it, I'm okay, because I know that they're gonna get instruction from me at another time. So it's okay. And then. So that's two centers so far reading technology. And then my third one is a writing center. This is different, this can be handwriting, at the beginning of the year, first grade, this can be drawing a picture, this can be labeling, you know what, these kids aren't little robots. So it's not like they have to be doing, like, I don't know, I'm starting to get a little more relaxed with that, like, so they're making a card for their mom and dad. And they wrote to Mom and Dad, and then they're drawing a picture. I'm like, You know what, it's fine. Like, I still am going to have writing instruction later on too. But this is me. And it's again, it's, they're expressing themselves and, and then as they're learning to write, and as I'm doing some things in my writing instruction, usually we'll kind of do like our outline our notes all together, and then they need more time to write. And they'll do that in the Writing Center. So it's kind of like different things. So those are my three main ones. If I have a parent helper, then they run the word work center, which is sometimes like a roll and read different kind of, it's usually a phonics based game. And I like it when I have fun, I have a parent helper than I like having them do that, because they can make sure everyone is on task.

Stacy Hurst:

You know, I utilize centers to when you're talking about writing, man, it just got me excited. Like I really want to go back to the classroom when we start talking about this stuff. But we I did teach writing at a separate time of the day too. But during our literacy time, they could also depending on which format we taught, and I think I mentioned this in a previous episode, we would start like you mentioned Lindsay, labeling things, and then we'd write signs. And then they always had the option to do any kind of format that was in the Writing Center. But then I had an editing basket, which was really on my part a little bit tricky, but it turned out to be very effective. Because when I taught the writing process, they, they would automatically put things in the editing basket, which again was for me a great way to assess where my students spelling and with their rate of expression in writing. And then the other center that I did add, had to do a science typically or a content area, but it always included something with literacy. So one of my favorite stories to tell when we were learning about observation, the scientific process, my students had a little journal that they would write down and we had class pets, and somebody gifted us a tarantula, I'm not even kidding. Terrifying, good thing it was in a case. But I on every Friday, I would go through my students observation journals, because in that center, they were just supposed to write down what they were observing the different things. And every student had written something to the effect of, it's just sitting there, it's just sitting there. And my first thought was, they're copying off of each other. But then when I went to check the tarantula, it was dead. I don't know how long it's been maybe a couple of weeks, but their observations were accurate. So do bring in content area. activities that are related to literacy to is something that is usually very fun and gives you a little bit more bang for your buck.

Lindsay Kemeny:

So fun. It just takes a little more forethought, Stacy, and I don't want to plan.

Stacy Hurst:

That make sense. But once you have that, once you're focused on the literacy activity, you can actually put in any topic it works just fine. Just make sure your creatures are alive. Yeah, no,

Lindsay Kemeny:

that's good. Okay. Other things I can aspire to. We're now he's just keep mode so simple. And then I guess you know, we should mention a little bit a bit about the management of it. And people do different things. Like I know sometimes people give students just like a task list and they go through the list. And then when you know they have when they finish this, they go to the next school the next, I'm a little more, I guess I'm just a little more controlling, because I have mine like kind of assigned at their different, you know, station or center. And it's all run on a PowerPoint. So I have up on the PowerPoint, on slide one, there's a picture of each thing and their names there. And it's on a timer. So that, you know, right now I do 15 minutes, when I taught kindergarten, they were like 10 to 12 minutes each. So I do 15 minutes, and it switches to the next slide and music comes on. So it tells them Oh, it's time to switch centers, and they go to the next center. And then what I'm doing is I'm just pulling, I'm just calling kids over, because some I'm going to meet with longer, and some I'm going to meet with shorter, so it just depends how much they need me. But it's really nice to have everything run on the PowerPoint, and the kids are very, very well trained. And they try you know, this group, my group this year is still a little bit noisy when they switch, I've had years where we were really good about being so quiet when they switch centers, like I'll work on that with those groups, but they switch. And it's so nice when you have a substitute because now they know what to do. And the substitute can just push slideshow from beginning and it's done. Like, there's like 45 minutes or an hour for doing for centers that you know, they don't have to do. And so right now, my centers are 45 minutes twice a week, or I guess three times a week and the other two are an hour when I have a parent twice a week we go longer. So now did you want to say something?

Donell Pons:

And you know, Lindsay, I just want to say that a lot of those strategies that you have in order to manage group for your students, the timer is knowing exactly what's going to come because there's some sort of prompt that I'm familiar with, should not leave the classroom as the students get older. And in fact, in middle and high school, when you have ADD and ADHD, and many other things, it is so nice for a student to have a time ticking down. Because that helps the students stay motivated. And oh, I've got 15 minutes to do this. I've just got Oh, no, I've got 10. Okay, these are really great strategies to keep students on task and to manage these various things that we're doing in a classroom. I think it's interesting, we think, Oh, as the older they get, they don't oftentimes need them even more to stay on it to make sure I'm getting the thing done. So anyone just put a push up there for older students. Yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:

that's good. It's good for both of them. And so what I did, but please don't email me and ask me how I did this. Because I don't know. But you can use like I just found on YouTube, Like, and I don't even remember where but I was looking for how to put like a visual timer on a PowerPoint. And so I have like this bar, and it's all it's like a rectangle, and then it slowly fills in blue. And so and then what when it's all the way blue is when Oh, time is up, it's going to switch. So that is so helpful for my students because they can look up and see. Or they know, um, I'm done with this writing paper. But look, it's almost all the way blue, I don't really have time to start another one. So I'm just going to add more detail, you know, and that's going to be good for the older learners too. Right, Donell?

Donell Pons:

Lindsay, I was just going to make a push that digital clocks are very difficult for folks who have dyslexia many, many times. Reading that, well, digital clocks are more helpful, analog is hard. So it's that the numbers are the slope of the hand. And oftentimes the teacher will tell you, I've got five minutes and my students have dyslexia come to me and tell me, I don't know how to tell the teacher I have no clue what that means. In the classroom, they've got this freaking hand, I don't have a clue what that means. So I love this bar that goes down. They know how close it's getting any of these things are fantastic strategies. So

Lindsay Kemeny:

good. Because there's things that can help everyone and especially great for our students with, you know, learning challenges like that. So it's just yeah, great. Well, this is awesome. This has been a great discussion. There's so many things we can talk about with small group like honestly, I think we can even go longer, but I I think we're out of time. So thank you.

Stacy Hurst:

Thank you for this topic. Lindsay. It was really fun. And I do think we could go a lot longer on this. Like we can have many of our topics. I can't wait to hear what the next one will be. So if you are like me, join us next time for the next episode of Literacy Talks.

Narrator:

Thanks for joining us today for Literacy Talks, the podcast series for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. We invite you to join The Science of Reading Collective, our free community and resource hub so you can stay current with new ideas, free webinars, resources and more. And be sure to visit Literacy Talks online for resources access to every season's episodes and more at readinghorizons.com/literacytalks. It's an exciting time to teach reading and ensure your students reach grade level proficiency this school year. Literacy Talks comes to you from Reading Horizons, where reading momentum begins. Join us next time.