At the time that I’m writing this, some educators are asking the question, “Is small group instruction for teaching reading a good idea?”

And some are saying that the answer is no – that whole group instruction is the most efficient way to teach reading.

This conversation is at least partially related to the Science of Reading (evidence-based best practices in reading instruction). Over the last few years, literacy practices in many classrooms have been transformed, thanks to the spread of information about the Science of Reading.

Questioning the “status quo” can be a really good thing. It’s definitely led to stronger early reading instruction in many schools!

Small group instruction, however, is not an instructional practice that we want to discard as we continue on our quest for more effective reading instruction.

The practice of working on reading skills with smaller groups of students (vs. teaching the same thing to the entire class at the same time) can be extremely effective – when done correctly.

In this post, we’re going to explore the benefits of small group instruction, what the research says about this practice, plus some caveats and mistakes to avoid during small group time.

Here, I’m focusing mainly on reading instruction in Kindergarten through 2nd grade classrooms, but many of these same principles (and the research) apply to students in older grades, too.

Benefits of Small Group Instruction

Benefit #1: Meeting Students’ Individual Needs

If you’ve been an elementary teacher for any length of time, then you already know that just about any class of students will have a range of needs. Some kids will need additional support and time to master the concepts you’re teaching, and other kids will need a challenge because they’re working at an advanced level.

Having students at many different levels is normal – but also extremely challenging. Small group instruction can make it easier for you to meet the specific needs of your students.

For example, say you’re teaching silent e to the whole class. Some of your kids may master the concept from your whole group lessons. Other kids may struggle – and may even need to solidify their knowledge of short vowels before they can really understand silent e. And some kids may be ready for more advanced work – say, multisyllabic silent e words.

There are certainly ways to differentiate instruction during your whole group lessons – in fact, I wrote an entire chapter about differentiating your whole group phonics instruction in my book, The Phonics Playbook.

However, it can still be very helpful to have dedicated time to work on skills that small groups of students need more practice with.

In the silent e example, you could meet with some below-level small groups to help catch them up in their short vowel knowledge, before moving on to silent e. You could meet with your more advanced students to work on 2-syllable silent e words, or more advanced phonics skills. This way, students get what they need and are more likely to successfully learn to read and spell.

Some educators might wonder, “Can’t you just work with individual students during your whole group lessons, to provide extra help to below-level learners?” And sure, you can….maybe.

If you have a class that’s larger than, say…10 students, it’s going to feel pretty hectic to go from kid to kid, providing extra help to those who need it.

Logistically speaking, it’s much easier to sit down with a group of students who have similar needs, and have them all in one place.

It’s also more effective than trying to teach or help several individual children with the same skill – because then you’re just repeating yourself over and over.

Benefit #2: Proximity

There’s also something to be said for the proximity that small group lessons provide. Student engagement and participation can increase when kids are in a smaller group size (especially in the primary grades). It’s much easier for some students to pay attention in small group, compared to whole class instruction. 

It can also be easier for you, as the teacher, to provide feedback to students. You can listen to them read, watch them spell words, and ask them questions to ensure they’re understanding what they’re reading. Students get to talk more often and provide more responses in a small group setting, so you can more easily provide kids with corrective feedback.

Benefit #3: Opportunities for Assessment

Small group instruction can make it easier for you to really understand how students are progressing with their learning.

For example, maybe it seems like a child is following along just fine when working on segmenting during your whole class lessons. However, when you sit down with them in the small group setting, you can see that they’re actually struggling and need more direct instruction in this area.

Because there are fewer students to pay attention to when you’re working with a small group, it’s a great deal easier to notice how kids are doing and take notes on student progress.

And the better you understand students’ needs (their strengths and weaknesses), the better you can adapt your small group – and even whole group – instruction to help move them forward. 

What the Research Says About Small Group Reading Instruction

All of the benefits I’ve shared probably sound logical – but what does the research actually say? Here are some example studies / meta-analyses that support the effectiveness of small group reading instruction.

Within-Class Grouping: A Meta-Analysis

Meta analyses are helpful because they combine data from multiple studies. In this meta-analysis, researchers compared data in a couple of different ways:

1. Small group learning vs. whole group instruction only – the results favored small group instruction.

2. Homogenous (similar ability) vs. heterogeneous (mixed ability) grouping – the results favored similar-ability grouping.

This doesn’t mean that A) we need to discontinue whole group instruction or B) we can’t ever use mixed-ability grouping. However, the results definitely favor at least some use of similar-ability small group instruction provides.

Lou, Y., Abrami, P. C., Spence, J. C., Poulsen, C., Chambers, B., & d’Appolonia, S. (1996). Within-class grouping: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 66(4), 423–458. 

The Effects of Differentiated Instruction and Enrichment Pedagogy on Reading Achievement in Five Elementary Schools

This was a single study, but it involved quite a few students (1,192 second through fifth graders across five different elementary schools). 

Overall, the students who received small group instruction ended up with higher reading fluency and comprehension scores than students who were in the control group (and did not receive small group instruction). 

Reis, S., McCoach, D., Little, C., Muller, L., & Kaniskan, R. (2011). The Effects of Differentiated Instruction and Enrichment Pedagogy on Reading Achievement in Five Elementary Schools: American Educational Research Journal, 48(2), 462-501.

Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention (RtI) and Multi-Tier Intervention in the Primary Grades

Although we’ve focused mostly on core reading instruction in this post (and in the other studies), it’s worth considering reading intervention, too. Sometimes reading intervention is done in the classroom – and the research indicates that this should happen in a small group setting.

The What Works Clearinghouse panel found strong evidence indicating that supplemental instruction in reading improved student outcomes.

Both one-on-one and small group approaches were included in the research they reviewed, and one-on-one intervention outcomes were not significantly higher.

This tell us that small group instruction is an effective and more practical approach than trying to provide reading intervention in a one-on-one setting (at least in Tier 2, in a traditional school setting).

Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C.M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson,S., and Tilly, W.D. (2008). Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to Intervention and multi-tier intervention for reading in the primary grades.A practice guide. (NCEE 2009-4045). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences,U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/.

​Should We Trust This Research?

Everything I’ve shared here is peer-reviewed research, and the meta-analysis, as I explained, covered multiple studies.

Of course, whenever anyone cites research, you’re only getting a partial picture – there’s a whole sea of research articles out there! And occasionally, different research articles actually contradict each other.

But between my personal experience with teaching small groups and the research evidence that supports them, I won’t be recommending that teachers discontinue small group instruction.

Whole group instruction is still extremely important, but small group instruction is a powerful complement to it.

Caveats & Mistakes to Avoid

Of course, how you actually implement small group instruction really matters. (If you want to see some effective small group lesson plan examples for K, 1st, or 2nd grade, sign up for a completely FREE trial of my Literacy Clubs here.)

Just “doing small groups” doesn’t mean that your instruction is going to be effective. Here are some practices to avoid in planning your small group work:

Mistake #1: Seeing small groups for an extended amount of time – which results in the rest of the class getting off-task and wasting time.  

Even though small group instruction can be very helpful, it becomes unhelpful if it’s a waste of time for the other students.

When you have a small group of students in front of you, the other kids will need to work independently. This is a great time for them to practice skills that they’ve already learned, to ensure that they retain and fully master them!

But young students often have a hard time staying on task when working independently, especially if you don’t have an aide or other adult to support them. (Volunteers can be helpful with this, by the way!)

You don’t want to meet with so many small groups, for such an extended period of time, that the rest of the class doesn’t get any value out of this time of the day. We also don’t want to occupy the kids with “busy work,” just to keep them quiet. 

This means that you likely won’t be able to meet with every small group every day – which is perfectly okay. Or, if you do meet with every small group every day, you may need to A) shorten your small group lessons, or B) create two separate blocks during the day, so students get a break from their independent work.

Mistake #2: Teaching the same thing to multiple small groups.

While you might be working on similar skills in each small group, you don’t want to literally teach the exact same lesson or skill to all or most of your small groups. It’s more efficient to teach that skill whole group, and then perhaps follow up with additional practice in a small group setting (if needed).

Sometimes, you might work on the same skill with multiple small groups (or even the same text), but the scaffolding that you provide to each group is different.

For example, some kids might be able to get through a passage in one sitting, and then be ready to answer higher-level comprehension questions immediately afterward. Other kids may need you to break apart the text over a couple of days, provide support decoding words, and need more help answering comprehension questions.

In this case, it’s perfectly fine to do the same activity or read the same text with different groups, because the amount of support that you provide those groups is different.

Mistake #3: Creating so many different small groups that it becomes too much to manage and plan for.

Sometimes you end up with a class of children who have VERY diverse needs. It can be tempting to create 10 different small groups!

This is where you have to “live” in the reality of your situation. The vast majority of classroom teachers don’t have time to plan for and meet with 10 different small groups. (You probably won’t be able to see each group very many times per week, either.)

In these situations, I look for students who have roughly similar needs. For example, maybe they’re not at the exact same point in their phonics development, but they have a couple of skill gaps that overlap.

You can also keep groups flexible; kids don’t always need to be in the same group to work on every skill, and your groups should shift throughout the year as your students’ needs change.

Mistake #4: Launching straight into small groups at the beginning of the school year.

Kids need time to adjust to their new classroom and learn your specific expectations for independent work time. It takes time to teach the kids independent activities and procedures, so take the time you need at the beginning of the year to teach these things.

And if your small group block isn’t going the way you want it to – you can do a “reset” at any point in the school year!

It’s much better to have students following expectations so that you can focus on your small group sessions, vs. the rest of the class constantly interrupting you.

Sometimes that means rewinding and going over expectations again, even if it’s the middle of the school year.

When Might You Not Need to Meet with Small Groups?

There are a few circumstances when you might not need to meet with small groups. For example…

• Your class is very homogenous in ability level – you don’t have a big range of needs
• Your school implements a practice like “walk to read,” where kids move to a different classroom to receive lessons with other children at their ability level – even though this is whole group instruction, it’s differentiated in nature
• You have very strong support for below-level students, who meet with other teachers or specialists in a small group setting (outside of your classroom)

This is not to say that you shouldn’t or can’t meet with small groups in these scenarios. It just means that you might not have as much of a need to meet with small groups as often.

Free Resources for Small Groups & Literacy Centers

Want to see some examples of Science of Reading based small group lessons plans and small group activities? What about some literacy centers for the rest of the class to work on while you meet with small groups?

Grab a ton of these resources in the FREE trials of my Kindergarten Literacy Club or 1st/2nd Grade Literacy Club!

You’ll get these printables and much, much, more in the free trial!

I hope this post was helpful to you in planning for successful small group instruction! Happy teaching!