Making Decisions for Individual Learners within a Small-Group Setting

                The webcast, “Making Decisions for Individual Learners within a Small-Group Setting” contained many familiar ideas to me, but, also, new concepts about familiar topics.  For example, one of the speakers discusses that there are three sources of information which helps readers with their reading process. These include meaning, syntactic, and visual cues. Having skills in all three of these categories can help readings with solve words. This is a familiar idea to me, as well as, how teachers prompt students to use these three sources. A new idea was built upon my previous knowledge when the speaker mentioned examples in which teachers can prompt students to use one or many of the three sources of information. There are many ways in which teachers can prompt students depending on the student and there are the student needs prompted with. Hearing more examples of how teachers can prompt students in different scenarios helps me with feeling more well-rounded and prepared to prompt students on my own.

                The speaker gave another idea about small groups which I found was interested. The speaker mentioned that teachers should not teach the book in small group readings. Rather, teacher should teach the reader. At first, I was confused about this idea because it was new to me. I used to think that one of the purposes of small group reading was to give students more individualize help with understanding a concept of the book. Now I know that that could be a goal, but the main purpose of small groups is for teachers to teach and help readers. Teachers can work with the skills readers need by using a book or other reading in a small group setting. This made me think of what I will do with small groups when I become a teacher.

When I become a teacher, I plan on grouping students in small groups by a reading skill or strategies they need to work on. I can choose a book that would be helpful with learning a specific lesson. In the small groups, I can work with students on a skill they are struggling with or learning through the book. As students start to gain skills and learn new ones, the groups will change based upon student’s skill levels in reading.

Another idea about small groups that I found interesting and important is that small groups allow support in reading. When students are reading in small groups, they should feel supported by their peers and teacher. When I’m a teacher, I will want to enforce peers to support each other. On the first day of working with a small, I will talk about respect and treating others the way you want to be treated. I would talk about being supportive, as well, to establish ground rules of the small group before we begin. I’m hoping that discussion will help create a supportive small group environment.