[kyteacher]

I know this is the never-ending question but even after years of teaching I just can't seem to get a handle on how to organize and manage reading groups.

I have 24 students who pretty much fall into four different levels of reading. I have a two hour block of time. Can anyone give me ideas on how you manage your reading groups?

Do you do a whole group lesson and then have guided reading groups? If so, what are the other students working on during this time? (I know this is something we all struggle with.) How do you keep students from bothering you during your reading groups?

I would really like to hear your schedules for language arts block and how you organize and manage it.

Thanks in advance for sharing your ideas!

[cool2read]

well for me we have literacy groups and we go to that room. We have the reading specialist, classroom teacher and 3 different aides. Besides that-- in the rooms the primary grades get their centers down to a fine art. After the teacher establishes the rules of the centers she is then able to do another reading group. She rotates the groups that are the same from our literacy groups. Not for sure what the higher grades do but I can ask around if that is the grades that you are needing info on.

[rebeccav]

Last year I did centers and had students rotating through. It was a lot of work. I just purchased Practice with Purpose by Debbie Diller and it is fantastic! I found that book through PT!!! I will implement work stations this year. The book is worth the $$.

[linda2671]

I struggled with this for years, but 5 years ago I came up with a plan that really works well for me. This is how I would do a class with 24 students and four different reading levels. Divide your class into four groups. One group does guided reading with you, one group goes to centers, one group does seatwork, and one group sits together to read their guided reading books to each other. When the first reading group is finished with you, they go to their seats for seatwork. The ones who were reading together come to you. Those at centers go read together, those at seatwork go to centers. No one is doing anything for more than 20 minutes or so, so you have to plan accordingly. I find that when I manage my centers this way, the kids are quiet and cooperative. They don't do any one activity long enough to get bored and cause problems. They know that they have very little time to get finished. This process takes about 80 minutes of your reading time. You still have time for a shared reading activity. You can do it before or after your guided reading. Don't forget to count the time that you have to explain seatwork. My seatwork is always review of something we've been working on. I don't have them do writing for seatwork, because I like to circulate and conference while they do writing. I use Language Arts cut and paste activities usually.

[kyteacher]

Thanks for the ideas! Linda, your breakdown of the 4 group rotation sounds very do-able for me. I'm not sure why it seems so very overwhelming when I try to plan it out myself.

[garnet]

Great plan Linda. Sounds like what I do except I had to struggle with 2 groups at Centers. I like your idea better of having the 1 group do the read tog. on their own. We're implementing the Linda Dorn model this year so I'll do this. Thanks!

[Linda/OH]

I have read a lot of variations for what works during guided reading time. I'm not a fan of centers and want my kids to be engaged in reading . What works for me is a readers workshop format. After students have been taught what to do during this time, I begin GR groups. I only try to meet with 2 groups max daily (15-20 min each) while everyone is reading or responding to their reading. I also try hard to get in much individual conferencing which is just as important as GR.It gets me monitoring the room too because I carry my clipboard for on the spot conferencing. I have about 90 min for the reading part of my literacy block so that we do shared reading first, a read aloud next, and then independent reading/GR last. We try to get in a share time to end this block a few times weekly.