1. I only have 2 hours and 20 minutes with my kiddos. With all the mandated curriculum, I never felt like I had time to organize and run small groups.
2. I think small groups can be a management nightmare because 5 & 6 year olds don't always work well independently.
Despite my concerns about using small groups, I gave it a try. Having 1:1 iPads and some parent helpers were lifesavers and helped to make small group time run somewhat successfully, but I know there is still room for improvement.
Next year, rather that students leaving for 30 minutes each day to receive pull out ELD instruction, we are going to be able to keep our kids for the entire duration of AM Kindergarten. ELD services will be part of an extended day program instead. The extra 30 minutes that I am afforded based on this change is extremely exciting because it gives me so much more flexibility in how I organize my schedule and affords me extra time to use for small groups, writing, and possibly even science!
I'm excited to do some planning for small groups this summer so I'd love input from other Kinder teachers, or any teachers that use small groups, on how you make small group reading instruction work for you!
Heidi gives a lot of great ideas in this article and I'd love to know what YOU think as well!
Do you use small group reading instruction?
What do your other students work on when you are working with a small group?
4 comments:
I had 25 kindergartners this year, full day. Each day, I did two rotations for literacy stations. This meant that I was able to meet with a group of 5 or 6 in each rotation. During that time, the other students were at computer, iPad, writing center, listening center, or word work 1/2/3.
Because of the rotation, each child met with me twice and visited each station/center once during the week. Each rotation lasted between 20-25 minutes. I'm hoping I'll have a smaller class next year!
:-) Chrissy at ReadWriteSing
I use a variation of the daily 5! It works really well :) I definitely recommend reading the book!
I'm glad you're back to blogging, I've missed you! I also teach half day, so we do reading groups 3 times a week (Wed-Fri). It is an hour long and we have 3 rotations. The first is with me where we do guided reading, the second is with our instructional aide where they do word work or phonics instruction and the last rotation is independently or with a parent volunteer and they work on letters/sounds or writing. It works really well and I feel my kiddos get a lot out of it! We are also able to differentiate with the kinder classroom next door to us, so we group our kids by ability levels.
Hooray! You are blogging again! Welcome back! And thanks for the shout out!!!!
Take care,
Heidi Butkus
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