Small Groups/ Stations
K-2 Small Group Instruction and Stations
“Never do with a small group, what you could be done as well with the whole class.” ~ Timothy Shanahan
Small Group Instruction for Success:
Data is the foundation of small group instruction.
The goal of small group instruction is to close achievement gaps. (Use the diagnostic as a vertical alignment tool)
Target instruction
Progress monitor bi-weekly.
1. Alphabetic Principle
1. Building alphabet knowledge: recognizing and matching upper and lower case letters
Why teach alphabet matching?
- Letter naming is a strong predictor of later reading success
- Learning letter names and the difference between uppercase and lowercase letters is a foundational skill in learning to read
- Alphabet matching is a key component of phonics instruction where children learn the sounds associated with letters (the alphabetic principle)
How to teach alphabet matching
- Uppercase to Uppercase Matching: In this activity, students match uppercase letters to other uppercase letters. This can be done using cards, puzzles, or other interactive materials.
- Lowercase to Lowercase Matching: Similar to uppercase matching, students match lowercase letters to other lowercase letters. This helps reinforce the connection between uppercase and lowercase forms of letters.
- Uppercase to Lowercase Matching: This activity involves matching uppercase letters to their corresponding lowercase counterparts. For example, matching “A” to “a.”
- Puzzles and Games: Alphabet puzzles with pieces that fit together, memory card games, or interactive computer games can be used to make alphabet matching more engaging.
- Interactive Apps and Online Resources: Many educational apps and online resources are available that provide interactive alphabet matching activities. These tools often incorporate sounds and animations to make learning more enjoyable.
- Letter Magnets: Using magnetic letters, students can match uppercase and lowercase letters on a magnetic surface like a whiteboard or a cookie sheet.
- Flashcards: Uppercase and lowercase flashcards can be used for matching exercises. Students can either match the cards or play games like memory with the cards facing down.
2. Build Phonological Awareness and Phonics: Match sound to print
Instruction that teaches that letters represent the sounds of spoken language
Students who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have a difficult time learning how to relate these phonemes to letters when they see them in written words.
Programs of phonics instruction should be:
- Systematic: the letter-sound relationship is taught in an organized and logical sequence
- Explicit: the instruction provides teachers with precise directions for teaching letter-sound relationships
Effective phonics programs provide:
- Frequent opportunities for children to apply what they are learning about letters and sounds to the reading of words, sentences, and stories
How to Teach Letter/Sound Correspondence
- Letter Tiles - use tiles as a manipulative and have students say sounds as they point to letters.
- Letter Dice - use dice as a manipulative.
- Shaving Cream/ sandpaper/ etc - write letters and say the sound.
- Hopscotch - write the letters the students are working on in the squares and students can hop and say the sounds.
- Muffin Pan Challenge - in a muffin pan write a different letter at the bottom of each cup. Students toss a counter and must say the letter and sound of the letter it lands on.
Progress Monitoring:
2. CVC Words
CVC stands for consonant, vowel, consonant and refers to one-syllable, three-letter words that follow this pattern.
Why do we teach CVC words?
- Once a students learns letter-sound correspondence they are ready to start reading words.
- CVC words are short, easy to pronounce words for students to begin learning decoding.
- When students learn the pattern they can read more fluently.
How to teach CVC words?
- Teach word families.
- ELKONIN boxes
- Manipulatives: letter tiles, sandpaper, playdough, etc.
- Picture Clues: show a picture of a CVC word (sun, dog, etc.) Have students segment the sound and then choose the correct letters to spell the word.
- Missing Letters. Have students find the missing letter. (i.e. a picture of a log with l-o-g, and a picture of a dog with __-o-g. Have them find the /d/.
- Word Chains: have students use tiles to spell pet, then ask them to change the /e/ in pet to /a/. (pat). Then ask them to change the /p/ in pat to /t/. (tap).
Progress Monitoring:
3. Digraphs and Short Vowels
Digraphs:
A digraph is two letters producing one sound. A digraph can be formed by two consonants. It can also be formed by two vowels.
The five most common consonant digraphs:
- sh - as in she or wish.
- ch - as in chair or chat.
- ph - as in phone or phonics.
- th - as in this or bath.
- wh - as in when or white
Some vowel digraphs:
- ow - as in know or snow
- ui - as in fruit or bruise
- oe - as in toe or goes
- oa - as in boat or road
- ea - as in thread or lead
- ea - as in read or beach
- ie - as in pie or lie
- ie - as in field or chief
- ue - as in glue or fuel
- oo - as in wood or flood
- ey - as in they or prey
- ai - as in rain or pain.
Teach digraphs with short vowels
Using activities from above, teach consonant digraphs with a short vowel sound. ** Don't teach vowel digraphs yet, or silent letters **
4. Consonant blends with short vowels
Consonant Blends are two or more consonants that are next to each other.
- Consonant blends can be found at the beginning or end of a syllable.
- Many (not all) beginning blends are often separated into l blends, r blends and s blends.
- Some ending blends include nasal blends (blends with n or m). Blends containing these letters are often the most difficult for beginning readers to read and spell with accuracy.
- Most blends contain two consonants, but there are some blends like str, scr and spr that contain three letters.
- Digraph blends are blends that contain a digraph and another consonant (i.e. nch in lunch and thr in thrill).
5. Long vowels: magic e and vowel teams
Magic e
The magic 'e' is an 'e' at the end of the word that's not pronounced. In a short vowel sound, a vowel is typically by itself, while a long vowel sound involves the addition of a magic 'e' where the resulting words sound just like the vowel's name.
One thing to point out to them is that Magic e can only jump over 1 consonant. So if students come across a word like edge, they’ll know not to apply the Magic e rule because there are two consonants between the first vowel and the e.
Introduce 1 long vowel at a time:
This is more for struggling readers as it always helps to focus on one sound at a time. Start with a-e words like lake, fame, ate.
From there go on to the other vowels only adding one at a time and continuing to review the previous.
Vowel Teams
A vowel team is when you have two vowels that work together to make one sound. Think about words like rain, play, boil, sound, and goat.
6. Variant Vowels
Variant vowels are the groups of letters that produce the sound of vowels. One example of the variant vowel is the way that "ai", "ay", and "ae" produces the sound of long a. The concept of variant vowels teaches us that sometimes combination of letters can make the sounds similar to other letters.