Balancing Act: Small groups, conferring and partnerships

by Kristina Harris

The other night I was looking through the “Units of Study in Reading TCRWP” Facebook group. A teacher had elevated their struggle to balance the “teacher directed” components of the independent time during the Reading Workshop. We know what kids are doing, READING! However, the question always comes back to how many kids should a teacher aim to meet with during the Reading Workshop daily? Is there a method to the “madness”? I saw a response from someone in the group that suggested a 3,2,1 approach for direct, explicit instruction:

3 kids – with one small group
2 kids – with one partnership
1 kid – with a reading conference

WHAT!? 6 kids? That just didn’t seem like enough kids to me. Granted I realize it is a balancing act, I know I can meet with more than that. So I looked back from my reading notes of the past week and decided to flip the suggestion to a 1,2,3 plan.

1 small group (strategy or guided) (~4 kids)
2 groups of partnerships (4 kids)
3 reading conferences (3 kids) Photo by Les Anderson on Unsplash

That would give me a chance to instruct 11 kids during the independent time of Reading Workshop and 55 over the course of the week. To me, that felt better, but please know that this is not a science but an art. I know there will be days that I might have 2 small groups and no one-to-one conferences. I’m using this as my guideline to keep me on track and accountable for my minutes. I know how cute those kindergarteners are with their stories and they can easily persuade me to be off track!

This also lead me to think about my accountability to my students. Am I meeting with them enough? Is it fair? Is it equitable? As I was digging through my informal data over the past 2 weeks, I wondered if I had seen everyone. So I tallied each conference, small group and partnership conversation I had. Yikes! There were ones that I had met with numerous times (double digits) and others that had flown under the radar and I only met with once! Does it need to be equitable? Or will some students naturally need more direct instruction than others? I came to the conclusion that I must have been putting out fires first and only getting to the engaged proficient readers when I had time. I needed to change that, so that those proficient readers also had direct instruction more frequently. I also questioned if I am giving my struggling readers a chance to practice and transfer the skills and strategies independently if I’m always meeting with them. In light of this new information, I mapped out my conferences and groups for the next few days, knowing I could still remain flexible. I will continue to do this so that I can ensure I am meeting with my students enough, and to be sure I have data and accountability for not only my students, but for myself as well.

Updated with a Visual of my thinking from the comment below.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fXECgqu2ejwHHbzDvUsfBCGopwyKkPRuGuZISyMKdlA/edit?usp=sharing

Kristina Harris has been an elementary teacher for 12 years. She has taught primary grades and is currently working for Jeffco Public Schools as an Elementary Literacy Specialist. She is currently sharing about her co-teaching experience in a Kindergarten classroom through her blog, Teaching With Elevations.