10. It’s STILL IMPORTANT to provide predictable routines and meaningful independent work to engage “the other students.”

What is the ADJUSTMENT? 

Rather than relying primarily on independent reading or word work, the change is to intentionally include even more meaningful ways for students to strengthen both strands of Scarborough’s rope–word recognition and language comprehension (“balance” really makes sense here!). This can include rich language tasks, such as playing a picture card analogy game with a friend, listening to a recorded text, and responding through retelling or discussion. As for strengthening word recognition skills, students might use orthographic mapping cards to practice reading and writing tricky high-frequency words. Or they might play a “How many sounds?” game by indicating the number of sounds in a word pictured on a card. Of course, as soon as students know enough about how words work, independent work should include opportunities for writing and reading practice from their decodable texts. In a previous post, we offered this favorite partner routine, “Let’s play teacher,” to strengthen word reading and writing skills. 

We hope this list of possible adjustments to your small-group instruction has given you some things to mull over and even some things to try.  

Of course, this list isn’t meant to be the end-all-be-all list for better aligning your small-group instruction to brain-friendly practices. But we do hope that it gives you some jumping-off points so that you can get momentum going.

Meaningful change happens one next step at a time. So, pick a starting point that feels both powerful and doable. Muster your courage–attend to both your head and your heart–and begin to shift.

If you don’t have a clear and thoughtful scope and sequence for phonics instruction in place yet, that’s your starting point. Get together with your colleagues and your leadership to begin to explore options.

If you don’t have the assessment data you need to create groups based on foundational skills, you might start by looking for a simple phonics inventory or by implementing weekly spelling dictation.

If you have been relying solely on leveled texts, you might start by looking for some decodable texts (you may even find some tucked away in closets or hidden cabinets) and consider how they align with your phonics scope and sequence.  

Finally, if you aren’t really sure what more skills-driven small-group instruction might look like, we have a lesson template for explicit phonics instruction. In fact, we just completed an 8 -blog series on how to effectively utilize this tool to meet your students’ needs. 

Overwhelm is real, especially when it comes to rethinking core practices. But you can overcome decision fatigue by identifying one doable action and moving forward. 

And if you found this blog helpful, you might also enjoy our online class. It extends the content in our book, Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom. 

The class will help you untangle common misunderstandings about early literacy instruction and provides critical but manageable starting points for more brain-friendly practice. You can learn more about Shifting the Balance: The Online Class here.