During our center rotations, I always had a small group reading lesson for each group. This was the best time for me to differentiate their literacy instruction and implement different small group reading activities. Our small group reading lesson was short, only about 12-15 minutes long, but highly effective for my students.
Weekly Small Group Reading Activities
Each day we covered a different area of literacy- phonemic awareness, phonics, writing, reading comprehension, and high-frequency words/fluency. Some weeks, I may do a few days of one area, and other weeks each subject area would have a single day. By splitting up my lessons for the week, I was able to work on each skill with a small group of students.
Here's what a sample week might look like:
Monday: Phonemic Awareness
Tuesday: Phonics
Wednesday: Reading Comprehension
Thursday: Writing
Friday: Fluency
About once a month, I would forgo my small group lesson and do a one-on-one assessment instead. For this, I would have my students who were supposed to be with me work on an activity independently. I would call on a student from that group one at a time to do our assessment. This worked well when I had our quarterly assessments or I finished a phonics unit.
Sample Small Group Reading Lesson Structure
Each small group lesson had four parts:
Small Group Warm-Up– Before I sat down with my students, I liked to do a quick walk through around the other centers. The warm-up was an activity that they could do independently while the students at my small group waited. You can read more about how I did I used this strategy in this blog post here.
Lesson Introduction/Modeling– Once I sat down, I did a quick review of their warm-up activity. I usually tied the warm-up activity to the small group lesson so it flowed from one part to the next. I started the actual lesson with modeling the activity, whether it was a writing prompt, practicing reading, or answering questions. Then, we tried part of the activity together.
Independent- After a few examples or modeling the lesson, they would get the chance to do it independently. For example, if we were practicing writing a sentence, we might write one together, and then they would practice writing on their own. During this time, I would give support to each student as needed.
Review- At the end of the lesson, we would do a quick recap of what we practiced. I always encouraged my students to go home and tell their parents what they practiced during small group that day.
Easy Small Group Reading Activities to Try
To help you think of some small group reading activities to plan, I've linked some blog posts and YouTube videos below.
