Strategy Saturday. {Strategy Reading Groups.}

Saturday mornings were made for cartoons, coffee, cereal, and being lazy in pajamas, unless you're a teacher. (or another profession that works around the clock - any Christian Grey's around?) 

This morning, for Strategy Saturday, is dedicated to strategy reading groups - the big brother to guided reading.

Every practicing professional should be aware of guided reading - it's a buzz word in education. The basis of guided reading is small group instruction on a student's instructional reading level (determined by running records or mClass) to improve reading proficiency - to improve the literal act of reading with assistance in phonics, phonemes, and showing students word attack strategies, but what happens once the student can read? What happens when they know how to break apart the words, but don't know how to determine meaning? 

Well, that's where strategy groups come into the rotation. Strategy groups are the big brother to guided reading, at least in my opinion. Once students can read and apply simple comprehension skills, strategy groups help up the ante by focusing on a standard or a strategy instead of word decoding or a foundation skill. 

Strategy groups are also more flexible with grouping. Guided reading groups are homogeneous by design - every child is on or around the same level, so that the skills taught are relevant to the level. For example, if you have a group of children reading at a level G, the statement can be made that all of those children will need assistance with specific vowel patterns, like cvcc or cvc silent e. 

Strategy groups are a little different - they can be a variety of levels. The guideline is anyone reading over a level M/N can be in a strategy group, because they have the basic foundations of reading down pat. The basis for a strategy group is a comprehension piece or a standard, so any level can participate. 

When setting up a strategy group, here are some thing to consider: 
         1. What are the needs of my students? Look at mClass data or running records, any common assessment data from your grade level or district, or any assessment data from ticket out the doors or quick checks you have done in class. This is where you will pull your strategy and/or standard from. A need might be inferences in informational text or comparing character responses to events, or even something as simple as visualization (if you have ever tried to teach it, you know it's not really that simple.) 
        2. Who needs it?  This sounds like a stupid question, but gauge the proficiency level of each student who appears to need a strategy group. For example, if you are preparing a strategy group for finding main idea and key details, there may be differing needs in that broad topic. Group A may only need to remember how to distinguish important details from unimportant details. Group B might need assistance finding more than one main idea, and Group C might need the whole strategy retaught, because they can't do any of it.
        3. Pick texts. Pick texts based on the strategy you're teaching and the reading levels in your group. Strategy groups are heterogeneous by level and homogeneous by need, so if you're teaching character responses, everyone needs a book on their level that addresses character response. This is probably the most time consuming step, because you want the connection to be explicit and the text to be appropriate. Don't try to stretch it. If you're having a hard time connecting the skill to the text, your babes will too. 
      4. Plan the lesson. Planning the lesson is the easy part, because it's short and sweet. Reading groups are twenty to twenty-five minutes, at best, so you have to get the most bang for your buck. Start with a book introduction (picture walk, etc.), set a purpose for reading (introduce strategy), model it (use a different text or their text), and give them the after reading assignment (a question.) Wham, bam, thank you ma'am - your lesson will now run itself. 

Remember to take notes on individual students during the lesson - anecdotal reading notes are some of the most powerful pieces of evidence you can produce for a child's progression or lack of progression. You can have a reading chair (I am partial to that myself), where two children read to you every reading group, so that you can spend time with each individual. While you aren't listening to every child every day, you are spending more meaningful time with each child, which is much more powerful. 

Photo credit: Learning Focused

You can also change it up - add a graphic organizer to increase the rigor or assist with practicing the strategy. You can really step it up when you ask students to write from a graphic organizer. A graphic organizer is a great comprehension tool in any subject, but asking students to take that organizer and write from it to answer questions or summarize (another big score) is priceless. According to Marzano (see table), advanced organizers (writing from a graphic organizer) will produce a 28 point percentile gain and summarizing will produce 34 point percentile gain - together that's a 62 point gain from one activity, while they are also practicing an essential reading skill or standard. 

Strategy groups are essential to reader success in the upper grades. While guided reading still has a place for low achieving students, strategy groups are the best for most upper grade students. Think about adding one to your small group reading rotation and see what happens - you should see a gain in comprehension in all subjects. 

Hope Strategy Saturday can change your week and your classroom! 
Until next time, loves - 
xo, Lucy