Can I be honest with you about small group reading? I used to spend hours planning whole group reading, math, writing, social studies and science; then for small group reading I would fly by the seat of my pants. Who has the time to plan for five subjects AND small group reading lessons each day?! Small group reading quickly became the worst part of my day because I had no clue what I was doing.
Looking back…this is so sad. My first 2 years of teaching were spent trying to figure out how to be a teacher and the students missed out on what is now the best part of my day – small group reading.
How did my least favorite part of the day become the best part of my day?
I found something that was easy to manage and worked for me and my students. I stopped reinventing the wheel every week and focused on my love of reading. Small group reading time turned into a time where I shared my love of reading with my students and got them excited to read books! And finally, I found a “schedule” that fit my classroom.
Small Group Reading Rotations
I normally do 4 rotations with my students – that’s all I have time for. While I am pulling groups, my students have their own”rotations” to get through. I found the typical 20-minute rotations didn’t work for me or my students. It caused anxiety when students were unable to finish things and caused me anxiety when they weren’t rotating quietly or quickly. Instead of that, I do “ketchup, mustard, and pickle” rotations. I know that sounds crazy, but stay with me!
Ketchup – “Catch-Up” on Missing Work
This is the first “station” students have to finish. It is a time for them to finish any reading or writing work from the previous day or from whole group. They are NOT allowed to do any other subject except reading and writing during this time. This “station” takes zero prep time from the teacher! #teacherwin
Mustard – “Must-do” Work
This is the second “station” students do. This is the only “station” I have to plan. I make a list of things they must get accomplished during small group reading time (which generally lasts 1.5 hours). I normally have 2-3 things they have to do, but they can do it in any order. Some examples of things they must do are:
- Worksheets (like passages)
- Writing Calendars
- Work Work
- Textbook Scavenger Hunts
I try to keep this list short, but purposeful. This isn’t “busy work” to keep my students occupied, but work that serves a purpose. Sometimes I only have 1 thing on the list for them to complete!
Pickle – You “Pick” What You Want!
This is the final “station” students can do. Sometimes they won’t get to the station and sometimes they do! It depends how focused they are during our “rotations.” This is a list of activities that students can choose from. This takes zero planning from me because the list never changes! Some things on our “Pickle List” are:
- Achieve3000
- Read to Self (r2s)
- Read with a Buddy
- Write in Your Journal
- Online Reading Games
Click the photo above to download these signs for free!
Small Group Reading – Teacher Table
Now that the students have their independent work situated, let’s talk about my table! This is where the magic happens! Depending on what grade you teach, this could look different. When I taught second grade my groups were extremely different. I was doing phonics and decodable texts with 2 groups and chapter books with 2 other groups. I’m going to tell you about my phonics small groups and my chapter book small groups.
Phonics Small Groups
With my phonics groups we are focusing on sounds and decodable texts. Here is a very generic schedule of what we do:
- manipulate sounds in words
- practice spelling sounds
- match sentences to pictures or read a decodable text
And that is it! That is all we have time for to be honest. Let’s go through what each of these are and how much time I spend on them.
1. Manipulate Sounds in Words (3-5 minutes)
This is our warm up activity and it is super simple. I would tell my students to say the word “brown.” They would say that word and I would say, “Now change the /b/ sound to /d/.” And they would (hopefully) say “drown.” To be honest, in that example, most students say “down” and we talk about the sound they missed (which is the r). For this, we are just saying and listening. We aren’t writing any words down; I’m not showing them any cards for them to read; We are just listening to how one sound can change an entire word.
2. Practice Spelling Sounds (5-10 minutes)
This is my favorite part. For this part you and your students need white boards. I start by asking students how many sounds students here in a word. For example, I may say something like, “How many sounds do you hear in the word cape?” Students would then count out the sounds they hear → /k/ – /a/ – /p/. After figuring out there are 3 sounds, they would draw 3 lines on their whiteboards. On each line your students will tell you the sound and the letter to match that sound. It is also during this time that I teach what letters make up a sound. For this example I would say something like:
“On our whiteboard we have c for the /k/ sounds, a for the /a/ sound, and p for the /p/ sound. But when I look at this word it says cap, not cape. That’s because for the “a” to make a long sound (or say it’s name) there has to be an e at the end of the word. Let’s squeeze an e next to the p. We aren’t going to make a new line for the e because it doesn’t say a sound! The e is only there to made the a have a long sound.”
Then we would continue practicing long a words. Once they have a handle on that, we would add in some short a words. Then (on a different day) we would do a sort and write the words out in the 2 categories: short a and long a.
I have a highlight on my Instagram showing an example where I do this with a student if you want to check it out!
3. Matching Pictures to Sentences or Reading Decodable Texts (10 minutes)
This station changes depending on what day we are on. I start with matching pictures to sentences and end with decodable texts. These are sentences that have the phonics skill we are working on embedded. It takes what we were doing on our white board and puts it in a text for students. These activities can be hard to find. I ended up making some for short and long vowels, r-controlled vowels, and long vowel patterns. This part of our small group reading time is crucial because it puts the skills we learned into practice and show students how they can use what we’ve learned to help them read.
Chapter Book Small Groups
These groups take the most planning. If I’m being honest, I buy book guides or use the book guides from our book room to get through these groups because I don’t have time to read chapter books and create engaging questions before they start reading.
My favorite “tool” that I use when it comes to my chapter groups would be our learning mats. Learning mats help me to stay focused on a skill, they take 1 minute to prepare, and they help students remember what we read the previous day (or week).
Learning mats are basically posters that students fill out as we read. They aren’t cute or fancy, just purposeful. I hang them all up on command hooks near the guided reading table so I can easily grab them when the group comes over.
When a group comes to my table, I pull out the learning mat and we do a quick retelling/summary of what we’ve read so far. We review any prediction that we may have made, and then jump straight into the book! I tell them how much I want them to read and they start reading. While they all read at their own pace, I listen to one student at a time read and take some anecdotal notes. I keep it super simple. We read and talk about what we’ve read. That’s it!
Small Group Reading Tips:
Prioritize Student Needs
I don’t meet with all of my groups every day. I always meet with my “lowest” groups, but I switch off my 2 higher groups every other day. When they aren’t with me, they read a chapter out loud together. Then we can talk about what they read the following day.
Keep Your Materials in a Bin
Keep all your materials in one spot near your table. That way you can easily grab it every day. And keep your materials simple! You don’t need all of the Target Dollar Spot goodies to have a successful small group reading group.
Book Selection
Choose books your students will like! Don’t choose books from the 70s that your students will find boring. Ask their opinion! Do they want to read a mystery book? Action book? Something about animals? Is there a series they want to try?
Group Expectations
Make sure your babies know the rules. The rules should be simple and talked about a lot in the beginning. Your students should know not to come to the back table to ask a question during reading time. They should come to the back table with their supplies – like books, whiteboard, pencil, etc. They should all be participating and answering questions. Simple rules that may seem obvious, but definitely need to be said.
Fluency Practice
I didn’t talk about this before, but I also do some fluency practice as a warm up for the first 2 minutes of small group (sometimes). They reread a passage we did in whole group before or they read fry phrases that I printed and have on a ring. It is nothing fancy, just something they can do while I get the materials for that group together and my anecdotal notes out.
Remember to breathe.
My small groups do not go perfectly every day. My students don’t always finish all their “mustard” work. It’s not a big deal. That’s the reason for the “ketchup” rotation every day. Small group reading shouldn’t be stressful. It should be a time where you read with your students!
This will be a constant trial and error. Take some ideas, try them out, and see what works and what doesn’t! Small group instruction is so beneficial and it should be fun! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! If you want to see some of the things I talked about in real life, check out some of the highlights on my Instagram page! I have one for small group reading and one for teaching phonics.
Happy reading friends!
