What Are You Grouping For?, Grades 3-8

How to Guide Small Groups Based on Readers - Not the Book

Julie Wright, Barry Hoonan

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781544324128
• eBook ISBN: 9781544324272
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Bring out daring readers with dynamic small groups!

Like many educators in intermediate classrooms across the country, you may be using guided reading principles to teach reading.Whether you're following targeted reading levels or sticking with your school's established routines, chances are that guided reading has become synonymous with small group reading for you and your students.But... are your students getting the most out of small groups? Are readers of all ability levels experiencing the dynamic learning that can occur in small groups? Do you feel confident that the way you're grouping kids is based on their wants and needs?

Intermediate grade readers don't need to be guided as much as they need to be engaged—and authors Julie Wright and Barry Hoonan have solutions for doing just that using small groups. What Are You Grouping For? offers the practical tools, classroom examples, and actionable steps essential for starting, sustaining, and mastering the management of small groups. This book explains the five teacher moves that work together to support students' reading independence through small group learning—kidwatching, pivoting, assessing, curating, and planning—and provides examples to guide you and your students toward success.

From must-have beginning-of-the-year strategies to step-by-step advice for implementation, this guide breaks down the processes that support small groups and help create effective instructional reading programs. Based on more than 45 years of combined experience in the classroom, this resource will empower you with tools to ensure that your readers are doing the reading, thinking, and doing— not you.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Types of Groups
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Chapter One A New Way of Thinking About Small Group Learning Experiences (because being up close to students is what drives discovery)
• Chapter Two The Launch (because who doesn’t need beginning-of-the-year strategies)
• Chapter Three Scheduling (because schedules are key for the launch and beyond)
• Chapter Four Kidwatching 2.0 (because it’s all about orient, notice, take stock, and inquire)
• Chapter Five Pivoting Into Flexible Groups (because it’s the teacher moves that keep readers moving forward)
• Chapter Six Assessing Student Work (because looking at our readers’ work lifts their strategies, skills, and thinking)
• Chapter Seven Curating (because selecting the right texts inspires readers to be connoisseurs)
• Chapter Eight Unit Planning (because small groups are best anchored in a harbor of big ideas)
• Chapter Nine Weekly and Daily Planning (because weekly and daily plans chart the course for small group experiences)
• Conclusion It’s About Joy. Period.
• Appendix Ready-to-Copy Teacher and Student Reflection/Planning Pages
• References
• Index
• About the Authors
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