Strategies for Grouping Students
Feeling stuck with small group instruction and looking for strategies for grouping students? Grouping students can be overwhelming, but flexible thinking can take off the pressure. Employing flexible grouping strategies transformed my teaching while meeting the needs of students in unbelievable ways. These strategies led to targeted, responsive instruction allowing me to make data driven decisions.
Before diving in, if you want to learn more about the readers in your classroom, download these 9 engagement activities. Engagement is the first step toward creating lifelong readers, so don’t delay in finding out what makes your students tick! Sign up below to get these activities and more delivered right to your email!
Why I quickly learned how to group students differently
I was teaching 4th grade after 5 years of teaching in Kindergarten and first grade. As my first experience in the upper grades, I was nervous, but excited to be teaching many former students for the second – and some for the third time! While doing beginning of year assessments, I noticed many gaps in learning across reading skills and some disengagement. The needs in my classroom were wide – with 9 IEPs, several ESOL levels, and students borderline or below grade level. With this data, I knew I had to quickly implement small groups and keep good track of student progress with anecdotal notes.
When scheduling small groups, I quickly realized there wasn’t enough time to meet all of the needs of my class. I needed a more direct and responsive approach but quickly became overwhelmed! Traditional leveled groups with a clean-cut schedule just wasn’t going to cut it this year. I began thinking of new strategies for grouping students. I looked for ways to fill in gaps using scaffolding and trying out different types of meetings with students- both individual conferences and small groups. Targeted instruction and flexible grouping was the focus of all of my instruction. I learned how to take good anecdotal notes with next step teaching points for each student. This along with paying strategic grouping is what helped to fill in the many gaps that were present that year.
Read this is you aren’t sure what to consider when grouping students
If you aren’t sure where to start when thinking about small group instruction, then these strategies will help you to think about student needs in a way that is more than groups of high, medium, and low. Remember that small groups can be flexible and can change at any moment if data is the driver. I promise, if you take good notes and allow your observations to target the instruction to come, the results are amazing!
Does grouping students by ability mean level?
It certainly can! However, many teachers get stuck thinking that this is the only way to create groups. Groups of students end up traveling together for the whole school year – even across subjects. Teacher friends, there is a better way!
Grouping students by ability can mean by thinking level, comprehension skills, writing about reading abilities, or collaboration skills! Grouping students by ability may also mean by reading level. Some students may need to stick with a very targeted guided reading group that covers all reading skills for the whole year. But that doesn’t mean that those students only have to work with each other all year long. While that group may need leveled reading instruction, some students in that group may benefit from an enrichment thinking task bringing them together with students at different levels. The key is using flexible grouping, grouping that allows students to move in and out of groups when it is appropriate for their needs.
This may mean making changes on a daily or weekly basis for some students, and every 4-6 weeks for others. Some students may need even longer in a group, but be sure to check in with your groups every 6 weeks at minimum to see how everything is working and reassess. Take good notes with your observations so that you can use your notes to make informed decisions about future instruction. You can use any note taking template as long as you are able to stay organized with the templates that you choose. Not sure where to start? Check out these templates for reading and these for math.
Remember to be flexible, think fluidly, and stay focused on individual student needs, rather than sticking to a schedule that you created in September. I like to think of this as “the September scheduling trap”.
Here are 3 tips for grouping students for instruction
English language learners often get caught in the “the September scheduling trap” due to a lack in vocabulary. Lacking language does not equate to a lower group unless it fits instructional needs. They may need challenged with collaboration skills or with a higher level thinking skill. A 5-minute pre-teaching vocabulary lesson can go a long way with some students… even if that means prepping a student for the conversation they will have with peers. The same theme of thinking about students as individuals and in terms of what they CAN do rather than what they CAN’T do can change the way that you teach.
Tip #1 Staying consistent when grouping students by level
Grouping students by level is probably the most used small group in elementary classrooms. They are relatively easy to implement with beginning of year data from diagnostics and assessments. Many guided reading books have a progression of skills that are taught at each level making it easy for teachers to follow.
Consistency is key for these types of groups, particularly when students require instruction in multiple components of literacy. Multiple components of literacy are taught so the duration may be longer. When scheduling, it is important to consider which components of literacy should be taught for each group. Schedule these components each week so that groups are not missed.
If you’re looking to gather data from an assessment, read here to find out more about this process of analyzing data to form groups.
Tip #2 Think about student strengths when grouping students by strategy
Thinking about strategy is another way to group students. It does require a bit more analyzing of data from teachers because these groups are often shorter. Analyze anecdotal notes every day so that data drives future instruction. These groups may give some lower performing students the opportunity to shine. When considering student strengths, it allows students to build on skills they already have.
Strategy groups can have mixed levels of understanding. Objective groups are strategy groups that can be used to explicitly teach skills. This will lead to meaningful and direct teaching. These groups teach one skill and tend to take less time than a leveled reading group. The steps consist of modeling the skill, giving time for guided practice, and followed by independent practice. Flexible grouping is extremely important because how the students are doing determines on how many meetings you will have. Individual conferences should take place afterward to monitor the skill and ensure a transfer in independent practice. This will help you to make the decision on whether it is necessary to hold another group or not.
Strategy Group
Find a task or assessment and write down all of the assessed objectives. Under each objective, list the names students who did well in this area. Create a challenge group that builds on the preexisting knowledge. This is a great confidence boost for students especially for students who often struggle. Sometimes an encouraging, positive learning experience can be a breath of fresh air for a student that struggles and set them up for success in future learning experiences. While analyzing, make note of any significant reteaching required. Students who fall into a reteaching category need an intervention based group as well.
Grouping students by area of need can work using the same process. When students fall into multiple groups, think of the objectives as a learning progression and start with lower level skills. Check out Jennifer Serravallo’s reading and writing resources for a learning progressions and the how to on strategy groups.
Tip #3 Scaffolding for grouping students with different abilities by interest
Grouping students by interest is an excellent way to connect students in the classroom. Morning meeting or book clubs are great times to try out interest groups. With the right planning and prep behind the scenes, this is a great opportunity to give different leveled students the chance to learn and interact with one another.
Book Club Example
Interest groups worked well with book clubs in my classroom. With prep, I was able to group students of varying levels in one book club. The book I used was Tiger Rising (level r) by Kate DiCamillo. Six students were a part of this club. Two were reading at a level P, while four were reading at an R. The interest in this book was so high that I knew I needed to figure out a way to make this work. The level P students struggled with decoding but had high listening comprehension and loved to talk about books.
The scaffold was listening to the audio book ahead of time. The book was recorded and the audio was inserted on powerpoint slides by chapter. The students could easily click on the audio file with little support. They listened before each club meeting to gain understanding and prepare talking points. This scaffold gave them access to the text so that they could participate in a rich comprehension discussion with peers.
Many books already have an audio option, but recording can be pretty quickly in PowerPoint if you can not find an audio version.. If trained, parent helpers can volunteer to record fluent reading. Once the book is recorded, it can be used over and over! Listening to fluent reading is a great support for students who struggle with decoding and fluency. This book club did not replace decoding instruction for these students but gave them an opportunity to work on grade level comprehension.
Other scaffolding may be leveled questioning, pre-teaching vocabulary or sentence starters. Grouping students by interest allows students of varying levels to learn together and ensures that students are not stuck in the same leveled groups.
More Ideas about Strategies for Grouping Students
- Use grouping sticks
- Allow students to choose
- Spin the Team picker wheel
Use these strategies for grouping students to be consistent, boost student strengths and support with scaffolding. Small groups do not have to be a one size fits all so have fun with your students and be flexible! Need templates to start organizing your small group instructional block? This mega pack has you covered for scheduling, intervention, small group and individual planning sheets.
Try out one of these grouping strategies with this low risk free reading engagement download. Student responses can create instant small groups by level, strategy or interest!
7 Responses