Small Group Talk

For this blog I read chapters 7 and 8 in the Tovani text. I really enjoyed some of the suggestions and ideas to help your students understand readings. Small group is a strategy that I believe works very well in the classroom. I have seen it work as a student teacher. Small group gives the students a chance to discuss with each other what they thought about the text. They can hear other student’s perspectives and make connections. It allows students to form a deeper understanding of the text. When I was a student’s teacher we put the classroom in groups of 4 to 5 students. Each group read a different book. Everyday we gave each group time to discuss what they read the night before. It went very well and was very helpful for the students. Some of them were confused about parts of their books and other students would help explain to them what they thought about it. There were some days when some students had not read and were behind. We would let those students sit aside and catch up on their own. I noticed the students who hadn’t done their reading the night before usually had trouble reading. I would sit with them and let them read out loud to me as I looked along with them. This helped them out a lot because I could help them on words they were stuck on or if they had any questions I could lead them to the answer. This way they can have some sort of discussion about what they are reading since they are missing out on the small group discussion. If it becomes a patter with a students then there needs to be consequences because the small group discussion is very important and helpful.

Sometimes students are not going to like the group they are in or not get along with other students. I liked the suggestions that Tovani had. I think when making the groups it is important to keep in mind your students personalities and choose the groups wisely. It might help to let the students give you some input on who they would want in their group and that way you can have each student with one friend in their group. Students have all different personalities and some are going to contribute more then others. I think there should not be group grades, but instead pay attention to who is contributing and who is slacking off and then give grades accordingly. Every classroom is different but from what I have seen from my own experience in the classroom, the small group strategy is very helpful for students.