Planning Small Group Instruction in K-3
As we deepen our understanding of evidence-based literacy practices it can feel overwhelming knowing how to organize small group instruction. Much of this process depends on assessment, and many of us don’t have control over the assessments we give. District administrators trying to make the shift to the science of reading are still requiring teachers to continue administering assessments like running records and the DRA, which have little value when it comes to planning evidence-based instruction.
We’ll dive deeper into assessment on another post, but for today, let's outline what intentional, skill-based, small group instruction looks like and how to get there with minimal prep time involved.
What is the purpose of small group instruction?
There is a myth that small group instruction counts as tier two instruction. However, in a structured multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) system, small, differentiated, skill-based groups are part of strong tier one, or core instruction. In other words, your core instruction includes both whole and small group, and your small group time is an opportunity to differentiate by targeting the essential early literacy skills your students need.
Bye Reading Levels, Hello Skill-Based Groups
Small groups should no longer be organized by arbitrary reading levels. Grouping kids by reading levels is based on a flawed idea on how we learn to read, rather than evidence-based literacy practices. Instead, we organize small groups by the essential early literacy skills elaborated on by the National Reading Panel. The skills we know ALL children need to become skilled readers.
I am sure you’ve heard of them before:
Phonemic Awareness
Phonics
Fluency
Vocabulary
Comprehension
Imagine these five essential early literacy skills are umbrellas. Each of your small groups will have a primary focus under one or more of these umbrellas.
Strong Universal Screening Measures are the Foundation for Planning
A strong universal screener contains research-based measures that indicate the health in each of these essential early literacy skills. The measures are highly predictive of future reading outcomes, which is why it is so important to use this data when planning small group instruction. Once you determine which students are below benchmark on each measure, you can form initial groups to pinpoint an instructional focus for each student based on those scores. Chances are, you will have a number of students below benchmark on any given measure, and a number of students at or above benchmark. Students below benchmark on the same measure will likely be in the same group, but not always. Looking at specific errors patterns will help you group students most efficiently.
If 50% or more of your students are below benchmark on any given measure, you should focus on that skill whole group, with additional practice in small group.
Here are some common measures with the skills they inform us about:
FSF- First Sound Fluency – indicates the health in Basic Phonemic Awareness (first sound isolation). “What’s the first sound in “dog”? /d/
PSF – Phoneme Segmentation Fluency – indicates the health in Phonemic Awareness (segmenting phonemes). “Tell me the sounds you hear in the word “dog”. /d/ /o/ /g/.
NWF – Nonsense Word Fluency – indicates the health in Basic Phonics- letter sound correspondences and the ability to read words as wholes. Students read nonsense words.
ORF – Oral Reading Fluency. Students read a passage, typically for a minute, and get scored on:
Accuracy- indicates health in advanced decoding/word attack skills (can the student successfully decode words with spelling patterns they have not yet learned).
Words Correct Per Minute- indicates health in reading fluency and reading comprehension.
Retell Score- indicates the health in reading comprehension.
Notice that the path from FSF to ORF is the typical path that all students take to become readers. Students become aware of sounds in words, learn how to blend and segment those sounds, learn how to connect those sounds and blend them in print, start to gain automaticity and fluency at the word, sentence and passage level, and learn to make meaning from what they are reading. This is why screening data is so informative– the measures tell you exactly where a student is on their path to skilled reading, compared to where they should be according to their grade level.
Not every screener has these specific measures. These come from Acadience Reading K-6, the screener I use and deeply believe in. If you don’t use this screener, a good starting point is to look at your universal screener and determine which measures indicate which skills.
Note: Vocabulary is not often included on universal screeners because it is so difficult to assess and is so dependent on life experience and background knowledge. Other educators may disagree with me, but for this essential early literacy skill, I like to focus more on building it rather than assessing it.
Finding the Lowest Skill Deficit
Each small group focus should meet the students at their lowest skill deficit, which means, if they are below benchmark on ORF, NWF, and PSF, but above benchmark on FSF, their primary focus should be on PSF, their lowest skill deficit. This is not to say that during their small group instruction, segmenting phonemes is the only instructional routine we should focus on. We need to make sure they are receiving instruction in decoding, and all essential early literacy skills in either whole or small group.
And, determining the lowest skill deficit isn’t always possible just by looking at universal screening data. Sometimes we need to “survey back” and find the lowest skill deficit by using lower grade level measures and/or diagnostic assessments. For example, if you are a grade 2 teacher with students below benchmark on ORF, just looking at their ORF scores likely won’t give you the specific information you need to start your small group instruction. To survey back, you may give them a 1st grade ORF assessment and find that they are also below benchmark on 1st grade ORF. At this point you still don’t know where to start, so you would need to go back further and give a lower measure like NWF to check on their basic decoding skills. If their NWF scores are at or above benchmark, but their ORF accuracy scores are below benchmark, this indicates a decoding issue, at which point you would give a decoding diagnostic to determine where to start instruction.
Impactful Instructional Routines for Each Skill-Based Group
Below I have summarized focus points for instruction based on the essential early literacy skills.
Basic Phonemic Awareness
Instructional focus: Beginning/final/medial sound isolation and letter sound correspondences (it is likely these students also need work on letter sound correspondences). Focusing on both together plant the seeds for understanding of the alphabetic principle.
Sample Lesson Plan:
Warm-up: 3-5 oral questions asking students the first sound in words (start with continuous sounds like /m/ or /s/ or /r/). Ex) What is the first sound you hear in “map”?
Visual Drill: Use flashcards with each letter, show the card, students say the letter sound.
Write the Alphabet: Focus on lowercase letter formation and accuracy before speed, offering corrective feedback on letter formation.
Auditory drill: You say a sound, and students write the letter.
Practice: Look at a picture and give the first sound. Write or match the letter that represents that sound
Phonemic Awareness
This is the next “level” up in your small groups. For these students you will focus on a similar routine from above, but instead you are teaching students how to segment and blend phonemes and letter sounds with students.
Instructional focus: Segmenting and blending 2, 3, 4 & 5 sound words.
Warm-up: 3-5 oral questions asking students to blend and segment phonemes (start with continuous sounds like /m/ or /s/ or /r/). “I will give you two sounds, and I want you to tell me the word” (blending). “I will say a word, and I want you to give me the sounds (segmenting)”. Don’t get caught up if students can’t do this orally- add in manipulatives or letters if necessary. Start with 2 sounds and work your way up to 5 sounds as students progress.
Visual Drill: Use flashcards with each letter, show the card, students say the letter sound.
Write the Alphabet
Auditory drill: You say a sound, and students write the letter.
Practice: Look at pictures, say the word, segment sounds with chips or letters, write the letters. Blending routines—continuous or successive blending with the letter sound correspondences students know.
Basic Decoding (CVC)
Warm-up: Orally blend and segmenting phonemes in 3-5 words (3, 4, and 5 sounds)
Visual Drill: Use flashcards with each letter, show the card, students say the letter sound.
Write the Alphabet
Auditory drill: You say a sound, and students write the letter or point to the letter on an alphabet arc.
Practice: Letter sound/picture match. Blending routines—continuous or successive blending fluency work with CVC words. Reading words on flashcards. Spelling dictation and/or phoneme grapheme mapping.
ORF- decoding/fluency/comprehension
You will need to look at the different scores here. Note that unfortunately not all screeners have a retell component, which is a great way to check on comprehension. If yours does not have a retell, try reading a passage aloud to the student and ask them to tell you about the story. If their comprehension is intact, and their accuracy and fluency scores are at or above benchmark, these students won’t need to be seen too often in small group. Acadience Reading K-6 offers a comprehension diagnostic called CFOL, but it is not free.
Comprehension Focus
If students struggle with a comprehension retell, check their sentence level comprehension. Can they tell you who the sentence is about? Can they tell you what the person or thing is doing? You may need to start here, breaking sentences down with students and helping them connect ideas within the sentence. If their sentence comprehension is intact, check their ability to pull to connect ideas across sentences. Do they know who the pronouns in sentence two are referring to in sentence one? These students may need instruction in comprehension strategies, or you may need to focus on building their background knowledge or vocabulary.
Fluency Focus
If students are at benchmark for accuracy but below benchmark for words correct per minute, that indicates they need work on fluency. In a fluency small group you may focus on word level, sentence level, and passage level fluency through activities such as fluency grids and/or repeated reads. You might also work on appropriate phrasing through a technique called phrase cued reading.
Phrase cued reading is when the teacher marks punctuation and pause points with slash marks and practices fluent reading with students.
Decoding Focus
If you have students who are below benchmark on accuracy, you need to do a decoding diagnostic or spelling inventory to see where their phonics holes are. These students would have an advanced phonics focus during small group, which can be an additional dose of your core curriculum but starting at the skill they are at.
Flexible Grouping
Remember, one of the hallmarks of strong Tier 1 instruction is flexible grouping. This means that students can move across groups as their needs shift. This requires an understanding of how reading typically develops, and how that development aligns with your assessment data. Readers generally follow a predictable path as they learn how to read. First they become aware of sounds in spoken words (phonemic awareness- FSF & PSF), then they connect those sounds to letters (phonics- NWF correct letter sounds), then they begin to read words as wholes (alphabetic principle- NWF whole words read), they then connect the words they are decoding to meaning (vocabulary), and then they begin to read words (advanced decoding- ORF accuracy), sentences and passages with ease (fluency- ORF WCPM) and then they understand what they are reading (comprehension- ORF WCPM & Retell).
Knowing this process allows us to look at our data in an empowered way. We can look at screening scores and know what skills to teach to help students reach the benchmarks. We can see when we need to move students to another group, and it also informs us where kids need to go next, or where we might need to drop back to in our instruction.
Planning small groups isn’t just about teaching phonics and it’s not just about teaching comprehension. It’s about using our data intentionally and picking specific skill deficits to pinpoint because we know the skills children need to become independent readers. I’d love to hear how you plan small groups and what questions you have!
