Create Small Groups That Help Struggling Readers
- simplyaaronni9
- Jul 5
- 3 min read
Be sure to check out the rest of this series below:
Part 2: Planning the Activities (Free Small Group Planner | Print & Digital)
Part 3: Lesson Cycle (Free Lesson Planning Template | Print & Digital)
Part 4: Analyzing the Data
What is Small Group?
Small group is when you look at your class as a whole and decide what students need extra support. Small groups can be any size, but the idea is that you have a "smaller" group students, so you can pinpoint areas for growth.
Who Are Struggling Readers?
Struggling readers come in every learning ability. Some students are struggling readers because they sincerely do not like to read. These are the kids that can read, but they sometimes refuse to. The other group of students are the ones that struggle consistently to read at all and may be diagnosed/labeled with a learning disability. Struggling readers come in every shape and size; this isn't something you can just see when looking at a student.
Benefits of Small Group
Small group has so many benefits. Let me count the ways!
Targeted Instruction. In small group, you can pinpoint the exact skill a student needs. For example, your whole group lesson is about plot, but you have a group of students that struggle with conflict. From there, you can have a small group focused only on that skill.
Smaller Group. There are studies showing how beneficial small group is, but I want to focus on the social and emotional part of small group. Socially, not understanding a whole group lesson and having to do small group can affect a student's personal feelings of being "smart" or "not smart"...but there is also the relief of answering questions with a smaller group of students. It may be easier for a student to get a question wrong in a smaller group, rather than a larger group.
Easier to Track Understanding. Whole group is a great way to teach a skill to all students, but without small group it could be hard to track what student struggles with what. This applies to ALL students. You can't truly know where they are in their learning unless you, literally, take a moment to have a small group where you get to do a litmus test on their understanding.
Easier to Scaffold. This is probably one of my favorite parts about small group. In whole group, you can scaffold a lesson to a certain degree, but not all students learn the same and they will need more intensive scaffolding to help them find a degree of understanding. Without small group, students will struggles may not get the attention and support they need.
Personalized. Small group isn't always about learning, per se. Let's say you have a student with behavioral issues that struggles when working in a large group. This may be the student that has a schedule that is not the same as the rest of your class. For example, when you're doing whole group teaching, they may be working on their computer or working on a learning platform. Small group allows you to teach the essential parts of a lesson without the student getting overwhelmed. It takes a while to master this, but when you do? It pays off.
Making Your Small Groups
While doing small groups is important, making groups for small group is so important. I have a few methods that I use to create them.
Anecdotal Information The Day Of. Let's say you're doing a whole group lesson. While teaching, it's usually easy to see who is struggling by walking around. You can make note of these students and what they're struggling with, before creating that small group. These groups change from day to day. I don't use this method often.
Quiz Data. Let's say you assign a quiz and you look at the data after. You can look at each question and see what questions were the most difficult. From there, you can see what students struggled with those questions and create a small group. These groups change from week to week. I use this method at the beginning of the school year.
Test/Benchmark Data. Let's say you take a unit test or a semester test. You can look at the data from the test or benchmark and isolate the weakest skills in your data. From there, you can create small groups based on the skill the students struggled with. These groups tend to supersede the anecdotal information and quiz small groups.
There are so many ways to make small group! Look below for a free small group planner (digital and print). Create small groups that help struggling readers
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