Guided Reading and Small Groups in Middle School PART I

This middle school and upper elementary small group and guided reading n blog post is part of a three part series. This is part one of three blog posts all about how I implemented guided reading and small groups in my middle school classrooms.  Click on any of the links to be taken to each of the posts in the series:

1. One: Guided Reading and Small Group
2. Two: Student Routines, Daily 5, and More
3. Three: Small Group Alongside Curriculum and Whole Group

CLICK HERE to get my Middle School Guided Reading Recording Sheets sent straight to your inbox. 

get free middle school guided reading forms sent
to your inbox

Subscribe to The Hungry Teacher and get five of my middle school guided reading forms sent straight to your inbox. You’ll also get access to all of my exclusive freebies and teaching ideas.

CLICK HERE

GUIDED READING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

This guided reading in middle school and upper elementary has become my most popular blog post. I think it’s because I was an elementary teacher turned sixth grade ELA teacher, and I was drowning. Meeting all my students needs seemed about impossible, my classroom management was non-existent, and I was about ready to quit. 

During my third year of teaching, and my first year in 6th grade, I wrote these original blog post about doing small groups in middle school and middle grades. 

Now, I am not an expert and parts of that year are such a blur, but I learned more in that one year, then I think I will for a long time, as a teacher.

I think the reason for it’s success was that I was like many other teachers out there, I was going through changes in life. Then, I was also a teacher while trying to create routine and normalcy in areas of teaching that often lack these qualities (or at least are super difficult to create).

Also, I was trying to do what some consider an elementary practice in a middle school setting. Even more so, I had a hint of self-depreciation as I struggled through the transition from elementary teacher to a kind of sort of middle school teacher.

MY SIXTH GRADE ELA ROUTINE

This was my ELA routine (twice a day) when I taught sixth grade.You can get these editable small group schedule (no strings attached) by clicking here and downloading them.

1. 10 min: ELA Bell Ringer
2. 30 min: Collections (my ELA curriculum) Lesson
3. 20 min: Round 1 (small group and Daily 5)
4. 25 min: Novel Lesson- Reading (10 min), Socratic Seminar (7 min), Reading Response (8 min).
5. 20 min: Round 2 (small group and Daily 5)

After we do our ELA Bell Ringer and our Collections lesson, I do my first round of groups. It took A LOT of trial-and-error, A LOT of re-organization, and A LOT of flexibility on my part. After playing around with some stuff, this was the schedule I came up with. I had two 6th grade ELA classes.

Above I mention “Round 1” and “Round 2” when my students were doing Daily 5 and small group. This is a broken down schedule of what those groups looked like:

HOW OFTEN I MEET WITH GROUPS

INTENSIVE GROUPS

I wanted to meet with my intensive groups at least two times a week. That being said, I typically get to meet with them three times a week, because of our intervention block. This can change if I need to do assessments or work with other students at this time.

PROFICIENT GROUPS

My proficient group meets with me about two times a week. In general, this is perfect. Sometimes, my proficient students need more help that week, and I just pull them to an intervention group or during Super Stallion/intervention time.

ENRICHMENT GROUPS

My enrichment groups only meet with me on Fridays. I used to feel guilty about this, but it’s perfect. They love that Fridays are devoted to them (sometimes, these kids, who get the least of my attention, just love to talk to me during this time). We get through as much as the other groups in just one session and most of them can multi-task. It really works out perfect.

LITERATURE CIRCLES

I used to meet with literature circles every day to check in, but quickly realized that most of my middle schoolers don’t need me for this. For the ones that do, I just check in with them and support them during my small group time with them. ALL literature circle groups meet to discuss, check homework, and prepare for the week ahead on Thursdays. I just walk around, grade, and give support as necessary.

My literature circles and book clubs are outlined much more thoroughly in section six of this series.

COLOR CODING SMALL GROUP SUPPLIES

What do the colors mean?

I started to really get in a groove with Guided Reading and small groups, but was SERIOUSLY struggling with the organization of the supplies. We had stuff in drawers, then bins, then file cabinets. It just wasn’t working because of the “Mixed Groups” section, and I would often move kids around for a variety of reasons.

We had a 30-minute intervention block at the end of the day where I had kids from all sorts of different groups. I could never find their individual supplies (meaning I had a kid from “blue A” and” purple B” and so on, all in one group).

I realized I needed them to be able to get their own stuff (duh!). The groups were color coded so I could tell them their color, and then when I met with them they were in charge of getting their stuff.

I went to Wal-Mart, bought these bins (but you can get them here on Amazon) and then color coded them as well. Now when I meet with a group, they just grab their bin, or a student can get their supplies out of their group’s bin.

WHAT DO WE DO IN THESE SMALL GROUPS

This was probably my number one question as an elementary teacher who went to middle school. With younger grades, you can typically read short books in one session, or maybe in a couple of sessions. The focus is on teaching students reading skills.

I still needed to teach this to some of my intensive groups, but in general, I needed to push my middle schoolers to think critically about their reading. We don’t get to meet as often each week, simply because middle school ELA classes tend to be 45-55 minutes. Some really lucky teachers get 90 minutes.

Nonetheless, it’s not a lot of time to do it all, so in my current 55-minute classes I see groups once a week. I want the lessons to be focused, rigorous, and effective. Also, I definitely don’t want the lessons dragged out for weeks on end.

TYPES OF RESOURCES

1. News articles that I print and we read and analyze (NewsELA.com has great ones).

2. Close reading passages: Keith Geswein, Kristine Nannini, Teaching and Tapas, and Lovin’ Lit on TPT are great for middle school passages.

I also have a couple of my own close reading passages based on my students’ interests: Anne Frank Close Reading and Al Capone Close Reading.

3. Task cards or exit slips focused on skills we need to work on. I have since made ELA exit slips for:

1. Literature Reading Middle School Exit Tickets
2. Non-Fiction Reading Middle School Exit Tickets
3. Grammar and Language Middle School Exit Tickets

Click on each link above or for the complete bundle  click here.  

You can also try ten of each exit tickets for free:

1. Literature Free
2. Nonfiction Free
3. Grammar Free

4. Reading response/writing quick writes. Students read a short story or article and either respond or are given a writing focused prompt. Here is a blog post here about how I get through all my grading in class. 

I have also since made a ton of different editable literature and reading response rubrics. Click here for the 6th-8th Grade Editable Literature Rubrics or click here for the 6th-8th Grade Editable Reading Response Rubrics

5. Test prep. I am not a test prep person really, but the tests aren’t going away. I don’t believe in overkill in February, so I just sporadically choose some good test prep passages and questions for us to work on. We tend to have lots of authentic discussions about the tests, because we are in a small group like this.

OTHER SMALL GROUP MATERIALS

GUIDED READING ROUTINES

With small groups, I found that there were resources and tools that I was using constantly with all of my groups, I kept many of these resources within an arms reach or within a quick glance for students and I.

These “Evidence Based Terms,” and its corresponding chart paper were used almost every single day with almost every single group. We were always citing evidence and it made more sense for these to be right behind us for small group.

The posters are free in Leslie Ann’s TPT store, and I think I got the chart idea from The Creative Apple on her blog.

This was the bin that was always within arm’s reach of me at my group table.

It held writing utensils, my reading intervention strategies reference books, notebook paper, interactive notebook supplies, and our close reading tool kits.

It only held stuff for small groups which made it so I didn’t ever waste any time waiting for students to get what they would need for their tables/desks. I had everything we needed.

CLOSE READING TOOLKITS

The close reading toolkits contained a variety of things from both The Creative Apple and Leslie Ann. Essentially, this was our go-to supply.

When kids came to the table they got a toolkit.

It usually contained 3 highlighters (for close reading), an evidence based terms bookmark, a close reading note guide, a *R.A.C.E bookmark, and a pen or a pencil.

*R.A.C.E – Restate the Question, Answer the Question, Cite Evidence, Explain the Evidence. 

Over the years, I used the R.A.C.E. and R.A.C.E.S. strategy more and more in my classes. 

My color schemes changed, and then I made posters and bookmarks to accompany that. 

You can click here to get my R.A.C.E. strategy resource to be used in your classroom. 

This middle school and upper elementary small group and guided reading n blog post is part of a three part series. This is part one of three blog posts all about how I implemented guided reading and small groups in my middle school classrooms.  Click on any of the links to be taken to each of the posts in the series:

1. One: Guided Reading and Small Group
2. Two: Student Routines, Daily 5, and More
3. Three: Small Group Alongside Curriculum and Whole Group

CLICK HERE to get my Middle School Guided Reading Recording Sheets sent straight to your inbox. 

get free middle school guided reading forms sent
to your inbox

Subscribe to The Hungry Teacher and get five of my middle school guided reading forms sent straight to your inbox. You’ll also get access to all of my exclusive freebies and teaching ideas.

CLICK HERE