Your Reading Group Tapestry

You’ve completed your F&P Benchmark Assessments, and you sit down with all of that rich data and the
exciting puzzle of making groups that work.  It’s a puzzle because you don’t want too many groups,
you want the students to have like needs and be instructionally reading at a level similar to others in the
group.  When you add in the really tricky pieces (like a student who receives a tier three service in
reading and is out of the room part of the small group/independent time), it can feel a bit like one of
those complex jigsaw puzzles that only people who are retired have time to complete!  

Here are a few ideas on how to tackle this:

1. Set up a time with your Teaching and Learning Coach!  We geek out over this stuff! We would love to sit down with you and set goals using the Literacy Continuum and then make groups.  
2. There has to be a way to make it work and meet all of the needs of your students.  Believe that you can make it happen, and the pieces will fit together.
3. After goal setting, group readers who showed up as same level instructionally together.  If there are students who are demonstrating skills in between groups, check their fluency rate and see which group they would fit better with.  Remember, groups are flexible! I usually error on the side of pushing the student ahead and you can always shift groups later.

Recently I read an article that talked about how unconscious biases can impact how you place students in groups.  Really the premise of this article questions the effectiveness of grouping students by levels, partially for this reason.  It talks about how in several recent studies, teachers tended to put students back levels who come from families who are living in poverty and push ahead students who come from families who are not living in poverty.  With the best of intentions, teachers often make comments like, “This student is a hard worker, so they can handle the challenge.” In reality, this type of grouping kids tends to put some students in a holding pattern.  

Even though I may have just added one more piece to the puzzle, it is critical that we think about what will help each student to grow in their reading development.  It isn’t enough to say that we believe ALL kids can learn at high levels, we must dig deep into our subconscious and confirm that our actions are demonstrating this belief for ALL kids.    

As you dig into creating your first set of guided reading groups for the year, get in the mindset of fitting the pieces together, and remember, you have a team and a coach who would love to support you!