Small Group Reading

Royalty Free Photo of a Teacher and Student Reading. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-09-2009, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=193745&tl=photos. Accessed 20-09-2021.

I have chosen to focus on small groups in reading...again!  This continues to be a frustrating endeavor for me because of time and behavior management issues.  As a kindergarten teacher, I train kids to a degree I think my expectations are quite clear.  However, in reality, I get about two minutes of quality instruction before the decibel level is unacceptable.  I also feel like my small group instruction is good, but maybe I could get better results if I landed on the right routines and instruction.  I'm hopeful I have been led to the perfect thing.

This summer when I taught summer school, I was asked to use How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction by Sharon Walpole and Michael C. McKenna.  I used the program with 3rd graders, but it is intended for K-3.  My plan is to use the interventions in this book, along with the readers from my reading series, to meet the needs of all of my students.  I am still working on a plan for what the rest of my class will be doing, but I am planning to have at least three groups as I only have 11 kids right now.

My BIG WHY for wanting to work on my small group instruction is because I feel like kindergarteners have a hard time meeting benchmark by the end of the year.  Most of the students reach benchmark in the Fall and Winter, but Spring seems to be hard to reach for many of them.  I feel like my whole group instruction is solid, although I know there is always room for improvement, but small groups are where I feel I need the most improvement.  I will know if my small group changes are working if I can keep 80% or more of my kids at benchmark by the end of the year.