How to Level Your Reading Groups!

0:00 Hey friends, welcome back to The Education Connection. I am your host, Robin Wilson. I'm a public school teacher with a master's degree in elementary education from Indiana Wesleyan University. Teaching is my passion. I love to teach reading and so today my topic is about leveling your small groups. The last time we spoke I was just talking about how to start those small groups and how to get the kids in order to learn the procedures of those small groups. So hey, let's just stop for a minute and celebrate. This is my third episode. Did you know that 44% of podcasters stop after producing three episodes?

0:43 Well, I'm not stopping. Less than 20% of podcasts that are started make it to 10 episodes. So as soon as I get to 10 episodes we're going to celebrate big. You'll have to help me think about how we can celebrate. Before I get started though I want to share. If you teach in a Christian home school, a private school, and need Bible based education, I am diligently working to create engaging lessons for your Bible education needs. I have applied common core standards with these so you can meet those standards required by your state.

1:24 The Bible education I am creating for primary grades is designed to engage young learners with the stories and teachings of the Bible in a fun and interactive way. Through age appropriate lessons, students will explore key biblical themes such as creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, Abraham and Sarah, and more. I will include where you can get your hands on those so you can meet your biblical foundational needs. Children just need to know about the Word of God somewhere in their life. And if your child does attend a public school and they're not getting it on the weekend or somewhere else, it is parents' duties to provide this for their children, whether it's Sunday school, home school, private school, or any school setting.

2:17 If you are interested in personal coaching in the area of reading, biblical education, how to set up your home school, classroom, private school, or Sunday school, I am also a certified online coach. But back to setting up those reading groups, so here we go. For today I'm going to break down the science of reading for anyone that is just learning, such as a stay at home mom, a private school teacher, or a beginning teacher. Science of reading is systematic instruction and foundational reading skills such as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

2:59 In the past we've called it the five components of reading, but the term has been called science of reading lately. The definition of science of reading refers to a body of research that has emerged from various disciplines, such as cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics, regarding how children learn to read. It emphasizes the importance of explicit systematic instruction in those foundational reading skills, such as I've mentioned before, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. So phonemic awareness is understanding and manipulating the sounds in spoken language. So it's what you hear, it's what your students hear when we're putting the sounds together.

3:45 Phonics is systematic instruction in the relationship between the letters and the sounds. Vocabulary is the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. Vocabulary is knowing the meaning of a wide range of words and comprehension, understanding and interpreting what is being read. Well, last week I talked about how to introduce small groups one at a time, but how do you know how to group those students once you've taught them the procedures? Depending on your grade level, you can test them on their book levels if you're wanting to start with reading.

4:26 There's also other ways to test your students in schools. There is a public, in the public school, we use already reading and math, and it's a state level testing. As far as book levels, I like to use fontes and penel leveled readers, but I realize you may not have access to those. I would suggest doing a search on leveled books to find leveled readers. You may find some at your local library. Ask a teacher friend. Check on Facebook. Teachers are always cleaning out their classrooms, and you may find some that way. I will include in my Amazon store a link to where you can find books that are also available.

5:11 These details will be in the show notes. To level my students, since I teach first grade, I start with level A, so it would be a book that is labeled a level A book. I ask a couple of comprehension questions, and if they speed through that without missing a B, without missing a word and are able to answer the questions, I'm probably going to skip level B and go on up to level C, repeating that process until students start to miss approximately five words in a reader. If you are not familiar with a reader, a reader is eight to eleven pages and is filled with words that are decodable for the most part.

5:52 After testing, I group my similar levels on post-it notes. So I have my desk filled with post-it notes spread out in front of me with three to six names on each post-it note in similar levels. In my class, after testing them in each of these levels, I found out that I have four students that are below level A. That means they cannot read a level A book. They are missing five or more words to start with. When this happens, I just ask if I can read the book to them so they don't get too frustrated. We just enjoy the story together and talk about it, putting it in, putting in a little comprehension, but it gives me the idea that I need to back up and teach letters, sounds, or just simply how to put those sounds together.

6:44 We start with C-V-C, and what that is is consonant-val-consonant. So a simple word like dog, d-o-g, and just having the idea of putting those sounds together to make words. So I have three below level A, three level A students, four level Bs, three level Cs, and one level L. I'll talk about that level L in a little bit. There is a movement. I just want you to know there is a movement moving away from level readers, but for me, it is the best way to really get up close and personal to find out the exact needs of that student in reading a fluency.

7:32 There are other ways you need to test though. There's phonics, testing, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, which are the five parts of reading. So once you get your levels, you can begin to work with students right where they are in their levels. I'd love to give you some examples of what I will do with each group. If you have a below level A student, you're going to check with these students to see if they know all of their letters and sounds. Do they recognize all the letters? Do they know all the sounds? Grab a pack of alphabet cards. You can make them from index cards or pick up some from your local dollar store. Pick up two packs though for games.

8:14 You can mix them up and go through each one to see if they know all the letters by recognition. Make a list and write down the ones they do not know. Then go through the sounds and do the same. If you don't know their letters and sounds, you can get two decks and play matching with about 13 cards with each matching pairs, making sure to put the ones they don't know in the matching game. Make sure they are saying the sounds and the letter names when they match them. The next week then you can play with the next 13 pairs or the next day depending on how you have your group set up. So for level A, this is the next step up.

8:55 This is where students are starting to put those letters together to make words and they're starting to recognize a few of the sight words. You need to get your hand on some level readers. If you are a homeschool mom, you may be interested in a purchase from Amazon that has five books for each level all the way through P. Now these are individual books. They're not the five same books. You can work through these. I've included links in my show notes. But if you're a teacher and you have three to six students in a group, you're going to need a set of leveled books so each child can have the same book you are working with.

9:35 Books come in sets of six of the same book. And I have also included links for these in my show notes. Students that are level B, you're going to start with a leveled reader and help them work through each word. You will read with each child separately while the others are working through it. You will get to them in this time you sit with them. So you're going to go around to each child and listen to each one of them read. You can learn. You actually, before you even start this book, you're going to go through and look at some vocabulary and you're going to teach them this vocabulary.

10:16 You're going to anything that they might not know. You can teach them to tap out the words. And so when I say tapping out the words, you're going to, if the word is dog, you're going to put your pointer finger and your thumb together and you're going to say duh and then your thumb and your middle finger, aw and then your thumb and your ring finger, guh. So it's duh, aw, guh, dog. And so you can tap these words out and have these words on some vocabulary, three by five cards for them and talk about the dog and tap each one out before you pass out the book. Then when you pass out the book, they have a little bit of background knowledge, a little bit of understanding about those words.

11:01 Also talk about the content of the book. If it is about dogs, you're just going to ask them, what do they know about dogs? If they have dogs, if they don't have a dog, do they know somebody that does have a dog? And then they will open up and start sharing with you all kinds of stories about the dogs in their life. So you're going to start with the first child and listen to them read each word. You're going to tap out the words and then once they see these words many times, they will remember it for next time. But it does take several exposures. They say about four to 14 for a child to read fluently. For a child with special learning needs, it may take 20 to 40 exposures to a word before remembering it.

11:49 With the Level C reader, you will continue to tap out words that they do know or that they don't know. Sorry. Continue the same process as in the other levels. These words will begin to include many tricky or sight words. Going over these words that are in the book first beforehand will give them the first exposure to that word. If you need a site, if you need a list of sight words, you can search Frize, sight word list and there are many free PDFs that you can get started on sight words as well. Then I'm sorry, that can be another group with just playing sight word games.

12:30 Level D is just the next step up and so forth. Remember to ask comprehension questions for each level. If they cannot answer the questions about what they read, they're not reading at that level. There are some students, I've had students before that can read way up high level and then when you go to ask them a question, it's deer in the headlights. They cannot answer anything so they're not connecting the knowledge with the actual words on the page. To truly know a child is reading at a specific level, they must be able to read it fluently and answer questions about it. Now you may be wondering what I do with the first grader that is reading at a level L and he is an outlier in my groups.

13:19 Well I added him to my highest group so he's not alone but he has a different plan. So I have three level C's in that group and a level L. So I have the books ready to go for the level C as I described before and then I pulled a few books for my level L reader that are at level L. I let him pick which book from the few I brought to him to make sure he would be interested before I began working with the others. Now he is fluent even in the level L so I gave him a nonfiction book and told him to start reading. He was immediately pulled in and got lost in the reading and got busy with that nonfiction text.

14:03 I was then able to turn my attention to the others and continue breaking down words and following the process described above. After I finished with them I turned back to him and began asking him questions about his favorite animal in the book and he started rattling off all the details of a naked mole rat. That is the one he was most interested in and even wished he could have one as a pet. So there you have it. That is my small group guided reading. This process will work with homeschool. If you have one to two students it will work with private school, three to five students, Christian school, etc. If you have questions, more questions about anything I have talked about today please reach out to me for your needs whether it is reading or if you have any Bible education needs.

14:53 I have included in my show notes where you can get these biblical studies for your littles. Again, if you are also interested in personal coaching in the area of reading or biblical education, how to set up your homeschool, private school, or Sunday school, I am a certified online coach and I can give you one on one instruction. I have taught 19 years in public education and 32 years in Sunday school. I really do simply love teaching and I would love to help you. If this podcast has ministered to you in the way of teaching your children or inspired you, I am in any way or in biblical education, you want to know more about that, I would just love it if you headed over to my review page and gave me a five star review.

15:40 I am just starting out and I could use all the help I can get. If you want to know more about this episode or any of my other episodes, slide into my DMs, jump on a coaching call, or follow me on any of my socials for more information. Happy teaching!