ese students require instruction in these areas. First, I do more assessments to gain information such as the CORE Phonics survey and running records. Then, I will pull them in small groups to teach them these foundational skills. If possible, this is going to happen at least 3x/week for 20 minutes following an intervention program or curriculum of some kind. This will serve as documentation should I need to move forward with some other process within my school.
So what does that schedule look like?
I don’t do it all every day. I currently have a 60 minute language arts block and a 30 minute intervention block. I would be happy with two blocks of 45 minutes as well. If I did not have the two separate sessions because I taught middle school, I would essentially flip-flop between these models I describe below and probably build in 10 minutes of independent reading or 10 minutes of freewriting depending on the focus of the current unit to balance it out.
My 60 minute block is dedicated to language arts projects that involve some kind of written final product – whether that is a reading response or one-pager, a book talk/trailer, a picture book, a memoir, a website, a research essay, a notebook of poems, etc. That block of time almost always follows the same structure of minilesson, work time and conferences, and closing. I find conferences most beneficial for teaching writing although I will occasionally call a group of students all struggling with one skill together with me. More often, I will offer students to come to me if they need help with the minilesson skill or if they’re behind or whatever my prompt it. This often gets students asking for help that need it that’s more open since it’s self-directed. I am not singling anyone out for support, but I can by going to them later. I definitely do not distribute conferences evenly; many students need more time with me and that is okay.
During the 30 min intervention block, I center this time on independent reading, so we do multiple lessons on fix up strategies, reading stamina, reading behaviors, choosing just right books, etc. in class before we settle into reading. Once students can *mostly* be trusted to independently read, I can start conferences. I always do lots and lots of mini conferences before I settle into small groups. I will run through a set of strategy groups over a couple of weeks.
For instance, here is what that 30 minute block has looked like for me this year at various times.
Day 1 – Minilesson, Work Time and Conferences with extreme students (either side); closing with progress shared
Day 2 – No minilesson; 2 small groups each 15 minutes
Instead I might do:
Day 1 – Minilesson and Reflection on Book Club goals; Book Club Discussions; closing with goals for next time
Day 2 – No minilesson; 2 small group(s) each 15 minutes and/or conferences
Instead I might do:
Day 1: Long read aloud, minilesson with partner discussion, goal setting/closing
Day 2: No minilesson, independent reading and conferences
Instead I might do:
Day 1/2/any: Minilesson; 1 small group; Conferences; Closing
Or I might combine some of those to form a week. If I’m doing small groups, that’s going to take at least 3 days of my week. Some weeks, I only do conferences, especially in the first quarter of the year when we’re still building reading stamina. I also will conference with book clubs for our first book club of the year which is different from a small group lesson with them as I just respond to what I see and hear vs. planning on what to teach beforehand.
I think the key to meeting the needs of students is flexibility. I can’t follow the same exact structure every day, but I can follow the same structure for a few weeks at a time. When I shift, I just explain to students what the new structure will be. There are enough similarities (minilessons, book club talks or book partner talks, small groups with the teacher, independent reading, independent writing about reading, conferences, whole class sharing) that once they know the pieces, I can shift those pieces around to suit their need