Making Small Groups Work Part III

 KEEPING THE CLASS ENGAGED:

One of the biggest challenges of small groups?

Managing the rest of the class. If students aren’t engaged, small group time can quickly turn into classroom chaos.  So that means we have to set the expectations and practice the expectations.  It is important to let students know the purpose behind small groups, and the activities that they are doing provides support towad their reading  growth.

What can  students be doing while your in small groups?

1.  Develop  Structured Independent Work Stations 

•  Poetry Task cards/ with as additional response activity
•  Fiction task cards with an additional response activity
•  Nonfiction task cards with an additional response activity

✔ Word Work/Vocabulary Station – Reinforce vocabulary with engaging activities.

• Task card or Activities using  Context clues, 
• Task cards using semantic mapping or  Frayers model

Do you have access to  Blooket  and Quizzes?  you can create self paced independent task cards  and  the direction task cards for each,  explaining what they need to do.

✔ Independent Reading – Provide book choices and response prompts.

• You can have them opt to read on Audio,  or read magazines, .
• I have  laminated index cards that have pictures of various animals on them and  kids loved to be able to pull a card and identify a character that has the same characteristics as the animal and elaborate on their choices.
• Pull Passages from sites like Common Lit. and Newsela. - find passages relevant to the age group,- give an extension activity.
• Teach them how to use the library to search for new books without having to interrupt Small group instruction.
• Use a Parking Lot board-  give them a prompt to respond to and they post the response on the board-   I recommend using the  same text for everyone for this task.

Here  is  one of the Parking Lots  I use:  

 The students loved being able to post to it -  I would even use the Rubrics poster and have kids read their responses and place their sticky note where they think it belongs. 

 The key to this board, is to make sure kids know it is no  wrong or write answer, just past theirs on the slot that matches their response.

I utilize it for students to post responses to readings, to ask questions and to even post to other students numbers,  they give feedback.  Of course all of this is modeled.

I use this to create small groups, and I sometimes challenges kids the next day to pull their sticky notes from the previous day and lift the level of the response.  Of course I have already taught a unit on Writing about our reading

✔ Writing Station – Connect writing to reading with journals or quick writes.

• Provide students with Writing Bingo boards with different prompts for the genre.
• Dare I say it---- give them a  SCR (short  constructed response)  to practice.
• Allow them to free write.
• Put pictures in a station and have them come up with stories to go with them.

Students need to know they are expected to apply the learning that has happened in Writing and that the task they are doing willl be used during conferences as  tools for  forming small groups.

Suggestion:  Create prompts that reflect the different level of   BLOOMS and DEPTH  and COMPLEXITY strands.  (differentiation)

✔ Technology Station – Use digital tools for reading comprehension practice.

• This is where you can incorporate Blooket if you have access to it.
• This is where you can use Quizziz
• Do you have access to PADLET?  I have created a bank of graphic organizers for Fiction and Nonfiction and have kids copy and create one,  or respond  to on directly on  the Padlet.
• Jamboard-  is a great way to get book clubs to discuss their books by responding to questions and then task them with responding to at least one of their  group members responses.

OTHER TECH TOOLS:

     Flipgrid- video record responses, or create a book recommendation or commercial

     Adobe Express-  they can create wanted posters for the antagonist in their books

BUT,  the key is: 

1.  Introducing one station at a time, and the whole class engages in that station, when they master it,  then add another station.

2.  Modeling usage, care and expectation to any tools or tech apps/platforms.

 Once you introduce 2 or 3 stations this is where scheduling will come into play.

KEY POINT:  Make sure that you are facing the class as they are engaging in independent work, that way a gesture can be used without  causing a disruption in your groups.  

Teacher Hack : Use anchor charts and visual schedules to remind students of expectations so they can work independently without constantly interrupting small groups.

Are you looking for support in implementing and setting up small  groups?  Do you want to discuss any of the activitties above?   I am available to support your endeavors and help with planning and organizing small groups. with or for you.  I offer  Strategic Planning Sessions  


Don't forget  to look out for Part IV

Hit the follow button, for more tips ideas and resources for the reading classroom