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Strategy Groups in Middle School (video)

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Strategy Groups in Middle School (video)

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Reading Strategy Groups in Middle School

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How to Implement Book Clubs in Middle School ELA (blog post)

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How to Implement Book Clubs in Middle School ELA (blog post)

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Book clubs are one way to get students together in small groups to discuss a common book that they're reading. In the past, I've avoided book clubs with my middle school students because I convinced myself that they wouldn't be ready to have a productive conversation without me there. This school year, I decided to get over my insecurity of letting my students have conversations without me and gave them a chance. I was amazed at the conversations sixth grade students were able to have with one another about the books that they're reading. Here is what I learned about the pieces I would recommend having in place in order to make book clubs a success in your middle school classroom.

Before I dive into the steps to take, I want to clarify how I define the different small group reading contexts.

-Book Clubs: A class of students is reading 4-5 different books. Students are grouped heterogeneously. Groups of students reading the same book all meet in the classroom at the same time while the teacher walks around the classroom checking in on the different conversations. Students make their own discussion points to bring to the group and complete self and peer evaluations.

-Literature Circles: A class of students is reading 4-5 different books. Students are grouped heterogeneously. One group of students meets each day with the teacher across the week. The teacher can be an outsider observing the conversations and/or jump in and participate in the group's discussion. Students make their own discussion points, and the teacher evaluates students based on his/her observations.

-Reading Strategy Groups: A class of students is reading 4-5 different books. Students are grouped heterogeneously. One group of students meets each day with the teacher across the week. The teacher works with students on reading strategies and helps students apply reading strategies to their book.

-Guided Reading: A class of students is reading 4-5 different books. Students are grouped homogeneously. One group of students meets each day with the teacher across the week. The teacher prepares a lesson for each group of students based on their book and what each group of students needs as readers.
Tip One for Book Club Implementation: Build Up to Them
I would never recommend starting the year with students reading in a book club format. I highly recommend starting the year with teacher-supported small group reading instruction such as guided reading and/or reading strategy groups and gradually move to literature circles before moving to book clubs. Start the school year out with a plan in mind for what small group reading format you're going to use with each of your reading units. Below is an example of what this could look like. There are many variations, but I wanted to share an example of how I would go about sketching this out.

Reading Unit One ( Realistic Fiction Reading Unit): Reading Strategy Groups

Reading Unit Two ( Expository Nonfiction Reading Unit): Guided Reading

Reading Unit Three ( Science Fiction/Fantasy Reading Unit): Literature Circles

Reading Unit Four ( Memoir Reading Unit): Reading Strategy Groups

Reading Unit Five ( Historical Fiction Reading Unit): Literature Circles

Reading Unit Six ( Narrative Nonfiction Reading Unit): Book Clubs

Giving students a chance to practice small group discussion in literature circles while you're present in the discussion and can observe and lift the discussion when necessary is a vital step before jumping into book clubs. If you do not set this opportunity up first, there is a strong chance book clubs will be a complete disaster in your middle school classroom. Additionally, providing students with a daily interactive read aloud where you are stopping and modeling thinking, allowing for turn and talk opportunities, and getting students to write guided responses to text is a great support to building to book clubs.
Tip Two for Book Club Implementation: Teach Students to Write Discussion Points
If students aren't bringing high quality discussion points to their groups, the conversation won't be engaging or enjoyable for students. This will have a domino effect and off-task behaviors in the groups will amp up. Modeling how to write engaging discussion points during Interactive Read Aloud works great. Also, using sticky notes and encouraging students to write discussion points as they read versus going back to add them is another strategy I would recommend. Here is the format I teach students for writing discussion points along with an example:

As you can see from the example above, a discussion point has to be more than the observation about that part in the text. It also must include a discussion QUESTION that other students in the group would respond to.
Tip Three for Book Club Implementation: Model the Book Club Format
When you meet with a small group of students in a reading group, you as the teacher have a format in your head that you guide students through. When students meet in book clubs, they also need a format to follow in order for the group time to run smoothly. Below is the anchor chart I post in my classroom as a visual reminder to students about book club format.

One of my favorite ways to get students to internalize this structure is by having an example group of students go into the middle of the classroom and have all the other students circle around the outside of them as they have a sample book club discussion using our interactive read aloud or a short story. We call this a fishbowl discussion. A fishbowl discussion allows students to see the book club format in action and allows you as the teacher to facilitate a whole class discussion about what students noticed, what went well, and what could go better.
Tip Four for Book Club Implementation: Make Book Club Expectations Clear
After doing a fishbowl discussion to show students a sample book club, it's a great time to co-construct book club expectations with your class and capture the shared expectations on an anchor chart. Here is an example of the expectations my students came up with:

Many of these common expectations originated from what students learned worked for them during literature circles in previous reading units. Before every book club discussion, I review these expectations with students ahead of time.
Tip Five for Book Club Implementation: Give Students Discussion Questions for Extra Time
No matter how prepared students are for book club discussions, some groups may not go into as deep conversations as others. It never fails that there will be one group sitting silently staring at each other while other groups are still chatting away. This is why I recommend having an anchor chart called, "What Can We Discuss If We Have Extra Time?" with questions groups can transition into if they finish talking about their discussion points early. Here is an example of what this anchor chart could look like:

Several of the questions related back to our reading lessons from our current reading unit at the time.
Tip Six for Book Club Implementation: Have Students Self-Evaluate and Peer-Evaluate
Since you can not be in four book club discussions at one time, it is necessary for students to self-evaluate and peer-evaluate how their book club discussion went. Not only does this assessment tool give you a pulse on how students perceived their discussions went, it also gets students to immediately reflect on what went well and what could go better next time their group meets. Below is a picture of the self and peer evaluation I use for book clubs. To grab a free download of this document to use with your students during book clubs, click here.

Here is this blog post as a video.

If you decide to implement book clubs into your small group reading instruction line-up this school year, I hope some of these tips help! That moment when you pause and do a 360 in your classroom and realize all book club groups are engaged in productive conversation about books is a pretty amazing one. It doesn't happen by accident. I hope you experience that this school year.

Kasey

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How to Implement Book Clubs Into the Middle School ELA Classroom

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Book clubs are one way to get students together in small groups to discuss a common book that they're reading. In the past, I've avoided book clubs with my middle school students because I convinced myself that they wouldn't be ready to have a productive conversation without me there.

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Are you wanting to move towards student-led reading in your classroom, but you're unsure where to start? We all want our students to love reading and have a choice in what they read, but it can seem overwhelming to figure out how to make that happen. Two ways you can bring student-led reading into your classroom are with literature circles and book clubs. But what is the difference between the two, and how do you know which one is right for your classroom? I'm going to share all the details!

What is the difference between literature circles and book clubs?

In my experience, I've found that literature circles work best for classes that need a lot more structure and teacher check-ins. With literature circles, students had set roles each week, as well as a set amount of pages to read from the same book. For example, one student might be a recorder and the other a timekeeper. The more "rigid" nature of literature circles can help manage behavior and get every student involved.

On the other hand, when I had a really good group of self-sufficient and motivated readers, book clubs worked really well. Book clubs in the classroom are kind of like adult book clubs! They are much more organic rather than having set roles. Students read the same book or can even read different books at the same time, but they are still able to have discussions and work on ELA skills. With book clubs, I provide groups with genre-specific prompts. Sometimes they didn't even need the prompts and conversations just happen organically.

Now that you have a better idea of the difference between literature circles and book clubs in the classroom, let's talk about strategies you can use to keep each running smoothly.

Guide to Using Literature Circles

There are some big advantages to literature circles, especially if you want to have more control over what is happening in each group. Here are a few tips for running literature circles:

#1 Make Student Roles Super Clear

With literature circles, making sure students are crystal clear on their roles will be critical to its success. First, choose the roles you want each group to have. You can assign these roles or let students pick within their groups. You can adapt these roles to meet your student's needs, but I liked having a summarizer, a discussion leader, a connector, and a vocabulary leader. Depending on the size of your literature circles, you can add in other roles like an illustrator, a researcher, or someone to keep track of where things happen in the book.

#2 Pick a Book that is Accessible to Most Students

Because everyone is reading the same book in a literature circle, you want to choose something that most, if not all, students will find accessible. Students should be able to read it and process it in groups with some level of ease. Of course, the book can challenge students, but it should not be frustrating or impossible to grasp without guidance. If you need some suggestions, here are some book ideas for 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade.

#3 Have a Clear Plan for the Curriculum

Literature circles require planning ahead, so you know exactly what skill to focus on, where to provide support, how you will model the skill, etc. If you jump into a book and just make it up as you go, students' skills will probably suffer as a consequence. Create a road map of the skill you need to cover, plan out your mini-lessons, and have assignments prepared in advance.

Guide to Using Book Clubs

If you are thinking book clubs are the right choice for your students (or at least for a particular class period), you might be wondering exactly what needs to be done to prepare. Here are a few tips:

#1 Get Organized

Book clubs in the classroom involve lots of prep and organization. This means physically, like keeping books organized. But it also means having a clear map of your unit, so you know exactly what students will work on, what each group is reading, and what activities each group has completed. There are many different ways to stay organized - some teachers like to write things all down by hand, some teachers set up a system for students to self-report what they accomplished, and some like to do it digitally. Choose a system that works for you and keep up with it - it will save you the headache later.

#2 Build Skills with Mini-Lessons

Since your classes and groups will be reading a variety of different novels, mini-lessons will become your best friend for teaching skills. Each day, you can introduce or review a skill within a mini-lesson and model how that skill with a mentor text (as opposed to a class novel, like you might be used to doing).

Then, students will apply what they have learned to their own book. These mini-lessons keep everyone on track with learning, reviewing, and applying the same skills while still allowing them the freedom to choose their own book. It's going to challenge students because they won't also be able to rely on their peers (or even you) to support them as they work independently, but that's a good thing! Check out this blog for an in-depth example of how I use mini-lessons to guide student learning with book clubs in the classroom.

#3 Plan Discussion Questions

In book clubs, students don't need to have assigned roles (especially if they aren't reading the same book). However, there is still work for them to do! Students should have discussion questions or some sort of assignment to guide their time during book club. Students can lean on each other for support if needed and share how the assignment applies to their novel.

I hope this helped you have an idea of how to implement literature circles and book clubs in your classroom. I know it can be intimidating to use novels in this way - especially if you have some rowdy classes - so I suggest you start small! Start with short stories or even poems. Then, as students learn the expectations (and you get comfortable facilitating), you can expand into novels!
Want more help implementing book clubs in your classroom. I've taken everything I've learned over the years and created what has become my most popular workshop: Book Clubs in a Box.

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Literature Circles and Book Clubs: Which one should you use?

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Literature circles and book clubs in the classroom: Let's talk about strategies you can use to keep each running smoothly.

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Reciprocal Teaching- what is it? (article)

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Reciprocal Teaching- what is it? (article)

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Reciprocal teaching is a cooperative learning strategy that aims to improve students’ reading comprehension skills, with four components: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. A group of students take turns acting as the teacher in guiding the comprehension of a text.

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Guided Reading and the Science of Reading (article)

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Guided Reading and the Science of Reading (article)

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Effective strategies in small-group instruction are those that help develop comprehension skills, extend and enrich vocabulary, provide alphabetical code knowledge, and promote oral language along with social and emotional learning. All of these should be the focus of every small-group instruction lesson, authentically woven together in context. Here are three strategies to consider.

1. Ask Divergent Questions

One of my interests has been in the comprehension strategy of questioning and the importance of teachers asking questions that encourage students to dig deeper into the text. Rather than dominating the questioning by asking questions where the answer can be found right there in the text, I would ensure that I asked the questions that required students to use their background knowledge and the information the author has told them to come up with a logical answer or questions that require more inferential thinking.

Research shows that most questions teachers ask are convergent questions. However, the most valuable questions are those that require divergent thinking. Convergent questions have a more narrowly defined correct answer, while divergent questions require students to think more critically and have infinite answers.

I would ensure that a majority of questions I asked students were divergent questions that require students to dig deeper-questions that start with phrases such as:

These are questions that don't require a correct answer. Questions that always require a specific answer can cause students to become discouraged. The message the student receives is, " I shouldn't answer the question unless I'm sure I have the right answer." Students learn to believe that having a "right" answer is of greater value than thinking, and that's simply not the case.

2. Encourage Students to Ask Questions

While a teacher asking the questions is important, I believe it's equally important for students to also be the questioners. Every small-group instruction lesson should provide students with this opportunity. It's essential to have less teacher domination and more student involvement.

For example, one student can assume the role of a character in the story, and other students can ask the character questions. Or if you're using a nonfiction text, you should encourage students to ask questions about anything they need to clarify or would like to understand further. They should direct their questions to the other students in the group, not the teacher, who should only serve as a guide. The one doing the talking is the one doing the thinking. When students are more involved in the questioning, they think more deeply.

Students need to make meaning from their learning; if they don ' t, the learning is soon forgotten. So, by ensuring there's an opportunity for students to be the questioners in every small-group instruction session, you encourage more active engagement and deeper thinking and allow for them to practice oral language and collaboration skills with peers.

3. Prioritize Social and Emotional Learning

Another one of my passions in small-group instruction is the opportunity to highlight social and emotional learning. We know there is a greater need to prepare students with the emotional skills needed to cope with living in our complex world. Small-group instruction plays a valuable role. I have intentionally woven social and emotional skills into all the fiction stories I have written so teachers can expose students to these skills in context.

Peggy Albers, a professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Georgia State University, found through her research that children learn how to behave, think, and act through the characters that they meet in stories.

Our students face struggles and pressures daily. By using stories in small-group instruction, teachers can bring awareness to an emotion in a less intimidating way because the emotion doesn't belong to the students, yet they can connect to it and learn from it by walking in a character's shoes. The importance of using small-group instruction to launch social and emotional skills cannot be over-emphasized. Educating the hearts of students is just as important, if not more important, than academic achievement.

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3 Strategies for Small-Group Reading Instruction from JillE

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Effective strategies in small-group instruction are those that help develop comprehension skills, extend and enrich vocabulary, provide alphabetical code knowledge, and promote oral language along with social and emotional learning. All of these should be the focus of every small-group instruction lesson, authentically woven together in context. Here are three strategies to consider.

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Making Guided Reading Work at the Middle School Level (blog post)

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Making Guided Reading Work at the Middle School Level (blog post)

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After providing guided reading instruction last school year to middle school students in grades 5-8 and looking to next school year, I made a list of my top take-aways to remember when implementing guided reading in the future. Here they are:

1. Flexible Grouping: Students are benchmarked at the beginning of the school year and guided reading groups are formed within the classroom, a schedule is made for which group to meet with each day, and it is very easy to get into a routine that works. However, it is so important to constantly be monitoring student growth and adjusting the groups within the class as necessary. Students should not feel "stuck" in their groups and know that based on what they learn about reading, their groups could change. You do not have to re-benchmark students every time you change groups. Changing groups can be based on your informal observations during guided reading and anecdotal notes. Although standardized assessments such as the Benchmark Assessment that we use at my school to form guided reading groups are great, they are not intended to be administered frequently. As the teacher, you know your students more than anything, and if you are carefully gathering data through formative assessment as frequently as possible, you are more than qualified to make the decision to re-structure groups based on your knowledge.

2. Focusing Discussion Within, Beyond, and About the Text: Through coaching language arts teachers, I get the opportunity to see guided reading in action on a daily basis and also conduct guided reading groups myself on a daily basis. One trap that I fall into and notice frequently while watching guided reading lessons is that teachers focus in only on within the text knowledge. It makes sense to make sure that students understand what is going on in the story. After all, if a student is unable to summarize what went on in the reading for that day, it is highly unlikely that this student will be able to discuss concepts beyond and about the text. This is not a reason though to only discuss within the text! As a teacher, examine your text introduction and ask yourself if it is supportive enough for students to be successful with the reading: did you introduce vocabulary, front load important themes, give a preview of the reading, etc. Also, another question to ask yourself is if the text that you selected is simply too hard for the group that you are using the text with. If that is the case, abandon the guided reading book and start a new one. In order for students to grow as readers and be able to meet the Common Core State Standards, they NEED to have rich discussion about text beyond what happened in the story.

3. Use Formative Data to Guide Instruction: The tricky thing about a guided reading group with 4-6 students is that there could be four students that are all a Level T in these different scenarios:
Student One: High comprehension, low accuracy
Student Two: Low comprehension, high accuracy
Student Three: Average comprehension, average accuracy
Student Four: At a Level T with high accuracy and high comprehension, but a Level U text is too hard.

Viewing the group as one unit versus individuals could cause students to plateau and not get better at what they need. Using formative assessment based on what you are noticing about individual students each day is so important because you will be able to use what you learn about students to set goals for them and know what to focus on with each student for next time. For example, for Student One I would spend some time while the group is reading silently to listen to him/her read out loud and evaluate and prompt for fluency. An idea for how to assess this can be found at this link: Assessing Oral Fluency Rubric and a blog post that I've written previously about this topic can be found here: Blog Post on Assessing Oral Fluency. However, with Student Two, I would spend time while students are independently reading asking a few comprehension questions and while the group is discussing the text, I would pay close attention to what this student contributes to the discussion. Other ideas for how to assess students during guided reading would be through guided reading exit slips: Guided Reading Exit Slips Blog Posts and doing reading records: Reading Records Blog Post. Bottom line, just because students are in the same guided reading group doesn't mean they should be instructed the same. Use formative data to goal set and figure out what to work on with each student during guided reading.

4. Expose students to a variety of genres: I will admit that I'm a realistic fiction girl and when selecting texts for guided reading groups, I tend to select books that I will enjoy reading subconsciously. Each genre requires students to use different reading skills, and one student may struggle with a fantasy text and strive while reading a biography. As the teacher, track which genres you read with each group and make a strong effort to expose each group to a variety of genres that will give students many strategies to take into any kind of reading and also give each student to chance to be successful.

5. Alternate Between Guided Reading and Literature Study: Throughout the school year, middle school students should have a combination of small group reading experiences between guided reading (homogeneous groupings by level) and literature study (heterogeneous groupings with a grade-level text that will illicit rich discussion). The two different types of small group reading instruction compliment each other and give students different skills that they will need to grow as readers.

6. Hold Students Accountable: Once students get to middle school it seems that there are times where they lose the beloved elementary school motivation and excitement toward school. All of a sudden they could appear "uncool" if they are excited about learning or they have figured out that they don't want to do the "work" in order to learn. Guided reading at the middle school level isn't effective if students don't do the reading and engage in the discussion, this is pretty obvious. One way that I have found to get students to see the value in guided reading and get more motivated to do it are to use assessment. I've used a daily rubric, and I've also used written assessments of books that we've read during guided reading. Both of these (along with a lot of other Guided Reading goodies) can be found in my TpT product through this link: Guided Reading Organizational Tools. Another way that I have found to increase motivation is by having students self-reflect on their reading and think and talk about how they are improving as a reader and what they'd still like to work on.

7. Guided Reading Isn't Equal: Say that you have 25 students in your 6th grade middle school language arts class and five groups total at the beginning of the year. At the beginning of the year, according to Fountas and Pinnell's Instructional Level Expectations for Reading, a 6th grade student meets expectations if they are reading at a V level. Here is a sample of what your groups could potentially look like:

Group One: 4 students, Level R/S
Group Two: 6 students, Level T/U
Group Three: 5 students, Level V
Group Four: 4 students: Level W/X/Y
Group Five: 6 students: Level Z/Z+

It would make sense to some to meet with each group once per week during guided reading. Right? Actually, although I think it is important to meet with each group at least weekly, I do not recommend just dividing up the groups and meeting with a group a day. This part is tricky, and as a teacher, you feel SO SO SO guilty when you aren't able to give all students time that they of course need and deserve from their teacher. The reality is there is one of you and 25 of them. The other reality is that Group One and Group Two will never improve as readers if you only meet with them once per week. So what do you do? There is no easy solution to this at all. Sometimes, you are lucky enough to have a reading interventionist or a Special Education teacher that you team teach with to take Group One 3-5 times per week. The same would go for if you're district had a Gifted and Talented teacher who would take group Five 1-2 times per week. This would leave you with three groups that you could meet with throughout the week and be an idea situation. However, I realize that this is not reality. If it were just me, and I had to make a decision about how to provide guided reading instruction to all five groups, here is what I would try first through setting aside approximately 30 minutes daily for guided reading instruction:

Monday: Group One
Tuesday: Group One
Wednesday: Group One (20 minutes), Group Two (20 minutes)
Thursday: Group Two
Friday: Group Four (20 minutes), Group Five (20 minutes)

It is in no way an ideal schedule, but it is important that an effort is made to close gaps for students reading significantly below grade level while students reading above are still instructed. One thing that I would probably try once the year got rolling was allowing groups 4 and 5 to meet with one another and have a discussion during guided reading time independently. I have found that there is so much that students learn from discussion with one another.

Final Thoughts: So there are my top tips to making guided reading successful at the middle school level. Guided reading is hard to implement at the middle school level for many reasons, but can make a huge impact if implemented with fidelity. I hope that some of these tips were useful to you! 🙂

Kasey

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Making Guided Reading Work at the Middle School Level

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After providing guided reading instruction last school year to middle school students in grades 5-8 and looking to next school year, I made a list of my top take-aways to remember when implementing guided reading in the future. Here they are: 1.

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Lit Circles vs. Student-led Books Clubs (blog post)

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Lit Circles vs. Student-led Books Clubs (blog post)

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The 4 Steps of Reciprocal Teaching (article)

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The 4 Steps of Reciprocal Teaching (article)

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Reciprocal teaching is a learning strategy where students learn to build reading comprehension skills in small groups by practicing one of several reading skills with one another. It's an instructional activity where students become teachers in small group sessions.

Educational researchers Annemarie Sullivan Palinscar and Ann L. Brow define reciprocal teaching as "a guided teaching strategy where small groups of students improve their reading comprehension by the scaffolded application of Predicting, Clarifying, Questioning, and Summarizing."

In groups of three or four, students rotate through these four designated roles:

The Summarizer: Highlights key points in the text for the group to understand.

The Questioner: Poses questions about the text for the group to consider.

The Clarifier: Addresses confusing parts of the text to answer questions raised.

The Predictor: Makes evidence-based guesses about the text for the group to build inferences from.

When combined, these four skills are the foundation of good reading comprehension. For some students, routinely practicing these skills is necessary to reinforce strong comprehension skills.

By teaching students how these skills work and having them explicitly practice with peers in small groups, students can better learn how to develop tools they will eventually apply automatically.

What is Reciprocal Teaching?

Teachers initiate reciprocal teaching by modeling the four comprehension strategies through group instruction so students can see the process in action. Once students are comfortable and confident with the process, they then take turns leading their small groups through each step.

Reciprocal teaching improves reading skills and sharpens students' metacognitive and critical thinking skills. Reciprocal teaching also capitalizes on two of XQ's design principles- meaningful, engaged learning and youth voice and choice -by keeping students active and engaged in a classroom environment where students lead their learning.

What are the Four Steps of Reciprocal Teaching?

Reciprocal teaching not only increases student engagement in reading, but it can also increase comprehension by dividing comprehension strategies into four basic components and giving students time to practice them. Research also shows tremendous benefits to students when they learn with each through collaboration and peer feedback.

There are also special tools for teachers to help them deliver successful reciprocal teaching activities. Graphic organizers, like this Reciprocal Teaching Pyramid, provide a useful visual reminder of each student's role and responsibilities. At the same time, this Reciprocal Teaching Checklist is designed for teachers to use as they work with students toward building comprehension.

Teachers should start by reading a section of a text and modeling each step. Then, divide students into small groups, each taking on one of the following roles.
Summarizing
Summarizing is arguably the most significant step. This skill involves students recapping the most important parts of the text they've read, both in writing and verbally.

As they read, students should take notes about important events and characters that appear in the text. Then, as a group, each member can share what they wrote to create a collective understanding of the text, a group roadmap.

To aid students in summarizing, consider guiding them with the following questions:

Who did what, where, and when?

What transpired in the beginning, the middle, and the end?

What were the most important ideas from the paragraph, section, or chapter?

Questioning

Questioning is vital in ensuring students don't gloss over confusing parts or elements they don't understand. This could be as straightforward as noting down an unfamiliar word or pondering the motivations of a main character.

One helpful framing strategy is to encourage students to form questions based on what confused them and what piqued their curiosity. Prompt students to ask the essential questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Clarifying

After questioning, the clarifying step addresses any confusing parts of the text and answers additional questions. Students can employ a variety of strategies-including rereading, decoding, and context clues-to identify meaning. They can also use resources like a dictionary.

Teachers can guide students in their search for answers by reflecting on three levels of questions and where to find answers. That includes:

1. Right-There Questions: answers found in the text.

2. Between-the-Lines Questions: answers found by using inference skills.

3. Critical Thought Questions: answers that require students to use prior knowledge and their own opinions.

Predicting

While it may seem straightforward, predicting is a two-pronged approach in the context of reading comprehension. It involves students using their inference skills to create an educated guess based on a text in a broader and more immediate sense. (This is not to be confused with cueing, or predicting the meaning of a word, an ineffective reading strategy educators are now moving away from.)

Inference building is a vital reading skill where students go beyond the literal text to understand deeper meanings and connections. Stong inferences require students to deduce information that isn't explicitly stated based on context and previous knowledge. Teaching inference building is crucial because it enhances reading comprehension, promotes critical thinking, and prepares students for real-world solutions where they'll need to interpret and analyze information. We've identified many of these skills as key competencies in our XQ Learner Outcomes.

The first part involves predicting what will happen overall in the reading material. Students can use various clues to make these predictions, like investigating the cover art, the title of the book, or even a summary.

The second part involves predicting what will happen in the immediate future, such as the next section or chapter of the reading material. Students should look for clues embedded in the dialogue, imagery, and literary techniques like foreshadowing to construct their predictions. Using evidence to support their predictions helps students avoid making baseless guesses that don't align with the text or prevent them from thinking intentionally or critically.

For example, if students are reading "The Diary of Anne Frank," a prediction like, "This book is about a girl who keeps a diary," is overly simplistic. Instead, encourage students to think more deeply by activating any prior knowledge as well as the summary of the book to formulate a more nuanced prediction.

While reading, students should monitor their predictions to assess their accuracy-a fantastic opportunity to practice their metacognitive skills and reflect more profoundly on their thinking process!

What are the Benefits of Reciprocal Teaching?

Research on reciprocal teaching has shown improvements in student reading comprehension skills and increased engagement as students hold each other accountable in their small groups. It has also been shown to be effective for English language learners or those with learning challenges.

Reciprocal teaching also benefits students through the following:

Improved literacy: Instead of skipping over words or sections they don't understand, students work collaboratively to generate an understanding.

Increased engagement: Students actively look for clues and details to support their role and engage deeply with their peers, keeping them focused on the text and committed to group success.

Better reading comprehension: By practicing Predicting, Clarifying, Questioning, and Summarizing, students are strengthening the four building blocks of reading and how to understand ideas presented in a text.

Independent learning: Working in groups, students can clearly see the steps needed for good reading comprehension, which they can apply to their independent reading.

Implementing Reciprocal Teaching in High School

High school is not too late for reciprocal teaching. Teachers in the upper grades can think of it as a kind of reading apprenticeship model. In a video observation from WestEd, high school teacher Suzanne Herko described the benefits of reciprocal teaching in the high school classroom. She explained how teachers are always present, answering questions, and showings students how to incorporate metacognitive strategies when reading. These skills appear in reciprocal activities where students learn in a peer-to-peer setting.

While reciprocal teaching is often a model in elementary and middle school classrooms, it remains a powerful tool for high school classes regardless of the discipline. Older students can use the model to build independence and hone their metacognitive processes in their reading. Students will need these skills in the classroom, college, and future careers.

"Oftentimes, students have this idea that when you read something, either you get it or you don't get it," Hersko said. "So, I see them being more metacognitive in understanding what they need to do in order to make sense of stuff."

Project-Based Learning and Reciprocal Teaching

In many ways, reciprocal teaching perfectly complements project-based learning (PBL), a method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world projects. During a project, students must identify a problem, make hypotheses, collect data, and communicate with team members to try and propose a solution.

PBL provides an ideal venue for students to hone the skills learned through reciprocal teaching, including summarizing, asking questions, clarifying, and making predictions. Reciprocal models are great for a variety of subject matters beyond English and reading courses. Whether using it to learn a new math concept, conduct a science experiment, or discuss a history topic in social studies, this active learning model is an appropriate instructional strategy for all teachers to integrate into practice.
Accommodations to Support Student Learning
Reciprocal teaching is also a great way to support English language learners and incorporate accommodations for students with learning disabilities and other learning challenges.

When differentiating for English language learners, it's even more critical for teachers to model each step and double-check for understanding.

There are more additional supports teachers can include for both reciprocal and other instructional models:

Offering clues if a student struggles to summarize, like pointing out examples of topic sentences or details, can help to build understanding.

Using graphic representations (a magnifying glass for the clarifier, a crystal ball for the predictor) for cues about student roles.

Incorporating multisensory approaches to support learning with manipulatives, realia, or physical cues to signal understanding.

Grouping students into mixed reading levels so they constantly learn from each other rather than compete.

Providing question stems to get students started, like "How are two characters alike/different?"

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The Four Steps of Reciprocal Teaching - XQ

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Unlock reciprocal teaching's power in enhancing reading comprehension and transforming high school education through student engagement.

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Middle School Reading Toolkit (folder with pdfs)

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Middle School Reading Toolkit (folder with pdfs)

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Reciprocal Teaching: Why, How, & Examples (video)

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Reciprocal Teaching: Why, How, & Examples (video)

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Reciprocal Teaching: Why, How, & Examples

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How to plan for Middle School Literature Circles (blog post)

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How to plan for Middle School Literature Circles (blog post)

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You have made the decision to try out literature circles in your middle school ELA classroom. That's awesome! Rather than handing students a book and diving in, I recommend strategically getting literature circles started through a series of steps. These steps help get the process of literature circles organized for teacher sanity and familiarizes students with discussion norms and what to expect when their literature circle group meets.

Before going over the steps to implementing literature circles in your classroom, I want to give my definition of what literature circles are. Literature circles are when a class of students is given a choice of 4-5 book titles that all share a common thread (theme, genre, author, etc.). The teacher gives a book talk for each book and allows students to express their top reading choices. The teacher then puts heterogeneous groups of students together by book interest. This differs from guided reading where a teacher would form groups homogeneously to match students reading levels. Once in a group, students form a reading plan and group discussion norms. The teacher then meets with one group per day each week for approximately 4 weeks. During the literature circle discussion, the teacher takes on more of an observer role, and the discussion is student-led and fueled based on the discussion materials students prepared while reading.

Logistically, literature circle group meetings last 15-20 minutes, and there are 4-6 students in each group.
Follow the steps below to get literature circles going in your classroom:
-Select a book set of 4-5 books that share a common thread. If you use reading units, select book titles that all complement the theme, genre, author, or topic your unit is based off of.

-Give a 2-3 minute book talk on each of the book choices. In addition, you could get students in small groups and give them one copy of each literature circle book choice. Students can then get 1-2 minutes to scan and examine each book choice.

-Now that students have learned about their book options, have them fill out a sheet to indicate their top preferences of which book they want to read.

-Next, set the groups by trying to give students one of their top three choices while doing your best to balance the groups. Remember, these groups should not be based on ability level, each group should contain students with a variety of reading levels (heterogenous groupings).

-Once you've established literature circle groups, make a literature circles calendar to create a reading schedule for each group with meeting dates and page numbers they should read for each meeting date. This schedule will allow you to meet with every group one time per week.

-Pick a date for every group's initial meeting. All groups can meet on the same day for their initial meeting. At this time, distribute the literature circles calendar and have students create norms they would like all members of their group to follow. I recommend making an anchor chart with group norms for literature circles to hang near your small group meeting area for quick and easy reference. See the example anchor chart with group norms for literature circles below. If time allows, have students begin reading the book together, encouraging them to stop and discuss the beginning of the book as needed.

-Have student volunteers fishbowl a literature circle discussion with a short story that you read aloud to students prior to literature circle groups meeting for the first time. As the small group of student volunteers models a literature circle discussion for the class, have the rest of the class circle around them and observe. Have students on the outside of the fishbowl jot down observations about what they notice, see, and hear. Come together as a class and discuss the conversation that was observed to help reiterate norms and expectations for an in-depth, enjoyable discussion.

-Decide what type of preparation you would like students to do for literature circle discussions. I highly recommend having students bring 2-3 discussion points to each literature circle group meeting. It's important to model high quality discussion points (use interactive read aloud to model a discussion point you would use to discuss the read aloud) and give students a format for writing discussion points. The anchor chart below gives an example of what this format could look like.

-During the first week of literature circles, students are reading and preparing. Do quick check-ins with groups to make sure students are understanding the beginning of their book and completing the necessary preparation to drive their own group discussion. When the second week begins, follow the meeting calendar and meet with one group each day. Remember, in literature circles, the teacher's role is an observer. Take the time to sit back and really listen and notice what your students' strengths and weaknesses are. You may also choose to use a literature circles discussion rubric to evaluate students' contributions to their group's discussion or have students complete a self and peer evaluation to capture how they think the discussion went.

-Follow a common literature circles structure each time a group meets. Check out an example structure from the anchor chart below. Ensure that students are using the agreed upon discussion norms when their group is meeting. One key discussion norm is to establish how students will know when to talk. I recommend having students use hand signals. An example of what my students do is if they have a new discussion point to bring up, they put their thumb on the table. If they would like to add onto something another classmate said, students press two fingers together and put them on the table. We always allow the students who want to add on to a current discussion point speak before moving on to a brand-new discussion point. I encourage students to dig deep into worthy discussion points rather than firing off new discussion point after new discussion point.

Students amaze me during literature circles every single time. I always fear that my voice and my opinions become too loud in the ELA classroom, and this is truly a time for students' voices and opinions to shine. Students will always share something about the book that I never even considered. For all these reasons and many more, I highly recommend taking the steps above to implement literature circles in your middle school classroom. If you're wanting more guidance, I do have a step-by-step resource with everything you need to fully implement literature circles in your middle school classroom. You can access it by clicking here. Additionally, all of my reading units contain literature circle resources made specifically for the genre of the reading unit. To check out my realistic fiction reading unit, click here.

Kasey

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How to Plan for Middle School Literature Circles

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You have made the decision to try out literature circles in your middle school ELA classroom. That's awesome! Rather than handing students a book and diving in, I recommend strategically getting literature circles started through a series of steps.

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When small group reading instruction is mentioned two instructional contexts immediately come to mind: guided reading and literature circles. Chances are you have tried or used guided reading and/or literature circles in your classroom. Today, however, I am going to explore a third instructional context for small group reading instruction that is not as widely known and implemented by teachers. This format is reading strategy groups.

I'm going to start by giving a quick rundown of guided reading, literature circles, and reading strategy groups to illustrate the differences between these three structures for small group reading instruction. Please keep in mind that the definitions I provide for these instructional contexts are how I have used them in my middle school classroom and understand them to be. You may have a slightly different working definition depending on your understandings, learning, and experiences.

Guided Reading: Students are grouped in homogeneous groupings with students at a similar reading level, and the teacher assigns a text near that reading level to each group. When the group meets each week, the teacher is the facilitator of the conversation and prepares within, beyond, and about the text questions for the group to discuss. Additionally, the teacher provides a text introduction at the beginning of the book or text to introduce the overall ideas and structure and subsequence text introductions to introduce the section of the book or text students are reading for the week.

Literature Circles: Students are grouped in heterogeneous groupings, so students within one group will have varying reading levels. The teacher picks a theme or genre for a literature circle and introduces 4-6 texts/books to students. Students rank their top choices of what they'd like to read, and the teacher matches students with texts and creates the groupings based on this student feedback. When students meet weekly to discuss their book/text, the teacher is present in the group as an observer role, and the students are responsible for bringing discussion questions and facilitating their conversation.

So what exactly are reading strategy groups, and how do you differentiate reading strategy groups from guided reading and literature circles? When, as a middle school ELA teacher, should you use reading strategy groups? How should you format, prepare for, and assess reading strategy groups? What are the benefits of using reading strategy groups? I will be exploring all of these questions below.
What are reading strategy groups?
For reading strategy groups, students are placed into heterogeneous groupings (not by reading level). The teacher picks a theme or genre for reading strategy groups and introduces 4-6 texts/books to students. Students rank their top choices of what they'd like to read, and the teacher matches students with texts and creates the groupings based on this student feedback. When students meet weekly to discuss their book/text, the teacher facilitates a conversation with each book group around a specific reading strategy and how the group can apply that reading strategy to their book/text. The reading strategy can relate directly to the reading minilesson of the day or come from a previous reading strategy that the teacher feels would help a specific group. Each reading strategy group would be exposed to 4-5 different reading strategies across a 4-5 week period, meeting weekly with their teacher. The teacher may cover the same or different reading strategies with the different reading groups depending on the group's needs and what reading strategies are most applicable to their book/text.
When should I use reading strategy groups? How often should I use reading strategy groups?
I love to do reading strategy groups with students during the first reading unit of the school year. Teaching and reinforcing reading strategies is a great time investment for the beginning of the school year because it can build a strong reading foundation for the remainder of the school year. Plus, reading strategy groups are heterogenous grouping based off of students' reading interests and don't require a ton of teacher prep in addition to the already-prepared reading minilesson for the day. As far as how often to use reading strategy groups across the school year, my recommendation would be to alternate instructional contexts and pick one instructional context for each reading unit (approximately 4-5 weeks of instruction) that you do. For example, if I do 7 reading units across the school year, I would plan out the instructional contexts that I was going to match the reading units with.

Reading Unit 1: Reading Strategy Groups
Reading Unit 2: Guided Reading
Reading Unit 3: Literature Circles
Reading Unit 4: 1-on-1 Reading Conferences
Reading Unit 5: Reading Strategy Groups
Reading Unit 6: Guided Reading
Reading Unit 7: Literature Circles
How should I format reading strategy groups?
I recommend formatting reading strategy groups using the structure I have created below. This structure has worked well at the middle school level for me with reading strategy groups. Another bonus of reading strategy groups is they don't have to take up a huge chunk of time. If you have as little as 10 minutes, you can still squeeze one in, but they're more likely to last around 15-20 minutes.

How should I prepare for reading strategy groups?
Start by setting a calendar so that you meet with each of your 4-5 book groups one time per week for 4-5 weeks. In order to prepare for a reading strategy group meeting, you need to decide what reading strategy you're going to teach, discuss, and prompt the group about. As you're starting out, I recommend keeping it fairly simple and using the reading minilesson of the day to reinforce the reading strategy. I'll give an example below.

Reading Minilesson Statement: Readers think about internal and external problems in the story and how they connect with one another.

Reading Strategy: Thinking about how internal and external problems connect

Prompts to use with Reading Strategy Group: Once you get to the "Prompt and Teach for Reading Strategies" part of the Reading Strategy Group Structure pictured above, have a few prompts prepared to generate conversation and teaching within the group. Below are examples I would use to prompt for the reading strategy listed above.

What are the main internal conflicts that the main character of your book faces?

What are the main external conflicts that the main character of your book faces?

How do an internal conflict and external conflict that the main character faces connect with one another?

How did one conflict in your book directly lead to another conflict?

What is a flaw that the main character has that has led to a conflict with another character?

How does the main character's society impact an internal conflict that he/she faces?

Preparing prompts that relate back to the reading strategy/reading minilesson of the day and following the Reading Strategy Group Structure is all you really have to do to be prepared to facilitate the small group of students.
How should I assess reading strategy groups?
It's not necessary to assess reading strategy groups at all or every single time a group meets. Reading strategy groups, however, lend themselves well to assessing Speaking & Listening Standard 1 from the Common Core State Standards. The standards based grading rubric that I have created (that can easily be used in a points-based, traditional grading system as well) assesses students based on coming to discussion prepared, following agreed upon norms, and asking/answering questions to create a rich discussion of the text.
Want Reading Strategy Group Lessons prepped for you and aligned to the reading minilessons you're using?
In my 6-8 Reading Workshop Year-Long Curriculum, each of the 7 reading units contains 20 reading minilessons specific to the genre of that reading unit. Each minilesson contains 5-6 prompts that can be used directly in Reading Strategy Groups or 1-on-1 reading conferences.

Additionally, the reading units contain other Reading Strategy Group resources such as:

Book/Text Choice Sheet for students to fill out at the beginning of the reading unit to help with groupings

The Reading Strategy Group Structure

Calendar Template for planning when to meet with each group

Reading Strategy Group Rubric to use to assess students during the meeting

Student Bookmark to organize dates and page numbers students should read to.

5-6 prompts aligned to each of the 20 reading minilessons in each of the 7 reading units (That's over 700 different reading question prompts to use with students!)

I think you'll love the simplicity in teacher prep and the reward in students' learning from Reading Strategy Groups. Give them a try this school year!

~Kasey

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When small group reading instruction is mentioned two instructional contexts immediately come to mind: guided reading and literature circles. Chances are you have tried or used guided reading and/or literature circles in your classroom. Today, however, I am going to explore a third instructional context for small group reading instruction that is not as widely known and implemented by teachers.

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8th Grade Literacy: Small Group Guided Reading (North MS)

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Guided Reading Lesson Plan Template (doc)

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Guided Reading Lesson Plan Template (doc)

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Access Google Docs with a personal Google account or Google Workspace account (for business use).