Small Group Lesson

Today, I taught two small group mini lessons for a higher level and lower level reading group. There were multiple different parts to this mini lesson. With the lower level group I laid out flash cards of different words with the middle "E" sound, for example the word red. Each word had a matching pair word, so when these cards were flipped upside down each student had to try to find each matching pair of words. Then, once each student had at least one word pair I would have them say the word, then come up with a sentence that has that word in it. The next activity the lower level group had to do was I gave them a paper book with a story that had words with that same middle "E" sound. Then, I would tell each student that "I see two words with that "E" sound and they are bed and red." "Can you find those words in this sentence and highlight them?" After they got done finding all the words with the "E" sound we read the story together. Another activity that both groups had to do was, I gave each student a sheet with five sentences that were incorrectly put together. The students then had to find out what was wrong with each sentence and write it correctly bellow. With the higher level group they did a different activity than the matching and story. For them, I gave them each a chapter book and I assigned each of them to read one paragraph to read.

Teaching these different level groups was very striking to me because, I had to be very specific with the lower level group on directions. With the higher level group I had to tell them directions once and they understood it. I think this just goes to show that with small group lessons you can really get that individual work in with students, if they are in groups with other students at their same level. Rather than if you are teaching the whole class you kind of have to go with the flow because, if one student isn't getting the lesson you don't want to hold up the whole class when that student is struggling. But, after you are done teaching the lesson you can go sit with that student individually and help him/her.