INTRODUCTION Small-group instruction is ubiquitous in today’s elementary school classrooms. In a recent survey completed by elementary teachers across the United States (n = 101), 90% of respondents indicated that they typically met with small groups of students three to five days a week (Ward et al., 2024). There are many reasons to group students during instruction. Maybe most obviously, small-group instruction can facilitate the goal of differentiation: Each student is unique in terms of the knowledge, skills, experiences, and interests they bring to the classroom; small- group instruction allows educators to be responsive to individual students’ needs. When delivering instruction to small groups, teachers can customize instruction by adjusting the content of instruction, the method of instructional delivery (e.g., how explicitly content is presented), the amount of instructional scaffolding provided, and the frequency or intensity of instruction (Tomlinson, 2014). But is using small groups to differentiate instruction really supported by the research? After all, when teachers provide instruction to individual small groups, students participate in fewer minutes of teacher-managed learning overall (Shanahan, 2018, 2024). Does using small groups to differentiate instruction really translate to benefits for student learning? And what does research say about the details: What is the best way to use assessment data to inform small-group instruction? How should teachers group students, and how often should they update student groups? What are the best ways to adjust instructional intensity, content, and methods to meet student needs? What classroom routines best support effective small-group instruction? The goal of this paper is to support educators and administrators looking to adopt or improve their approach to small-group literacy instruction, so they can align their practices with the current scientific evidence. We first define small-group instruction and provide a broad summary of the research on using small groups during literacy instruction in the elementary grades. Next, we identify and describe practices that support high-quality, small-group literacy instruction. To ensure that this paper translates research into actionable practices, we also provide specific advice for administrators on the role they can play in promoting effective small-group instruction. Throughout, we tie our guidance to practical examples to demonstrate how the components of evidence-based, differentiated small-group instruction can look when they come together in an elementary school classroom.
ALIGNING PRACTICE WITH RESEARCH TOPIC PAPER 1
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