Article Summaries - Whole Group Instruction vs. Small Group Instruction

There is a trend right now to move away from small group instruction—where the teacher is busy with just a handful of students—to more and more whole group instruction. I’ve been curious about this for months, perhaps more than a year even, especially where this stems from and why. Today I’m going to review two articles that discuss the advantages of teaching whole group compared with doing small group instruction. I’m rather opinionated about this topic and I can tell, just from glancing at the articles, that I’m going to have a lot to say. My thoughts and opinions will appear in italics.

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Should Reading Be Taught Whole Class or Small Group? by Timothy Shanahan, May 15, 2018.

Small group reading instruction is ubiquitous in elementary classrooms and has been for decades. Nevertheless, the author is surprised about the practice of specifically and intentionally organizing instruction around the idea of small group teaching (i.e., making it a priority in the daily schedule). He feels that by doing this, teachers must feel that small group instruction is valuable, no matter what is being taught, what the students’ levels are, and what materials are being used.

The question here is, does small group instruction advantage kids in learning to read?

John Hattie identified three meta-analyses on small group instruction and reported it to have a medium-to-large effect (.49) on learning, but, the author states, few of the studies focused on reading, they weren’t always comparing small group instruction to whole class teaching, some of the studies were from decades ago when classes had 45-60 students, and the studies included secondary and college classes, too.

Robert Slavin also conducted a best-evidence synthesis of research on grouping back in the 1980s (effect size of .32), but all of these studies just looked at the effectiveness of small groups without comparing them to the effectiveness of whole class teaching.

Based on what could be salvaged from those meta-analyses, the payoff of grouping for reading instruction had lower effects than was found for the other subjects (only .13) and it mattered how big the groups were. Groups of five or more received little or no benefit.

Kamil and Rausher (1990) conducted a study in which they compared whole class reading instruction with small group teaching in a large suburban school district. Surprisingly, they found that small groups “were not superior to whole class” teaching in terms of learning. There was just “too much variance within classrooms for the grouping patterns to have much of an impact.”

Another study (Sorenson & Hallinan, 1986) found small group instruction to be superior but only if compared straight across—30 minutes of small group instruction versus 30 minutes of whole class instruction. If a teacher has three groups who each receive 20 minutes of teaching, this should not be compared with 20 minutes of whole class instruction but with 60 minutes—the time it takes to teach the three groups.

The author’s conclusion is that small group teaching is beneficial in that it improves the impact of a lesson on the students who are taught the lesson. But amount of instruction matters, too, and when kids are grouped they are necessarily going to get less teaching. He’s not willing to give up on small group instruction altogether, but he would never organize instruction just to insure that small groups happen. He says to never do with a small group what could be done with the whole class. He’s observed the same lesson being delivered three or four times and believes it is foolish.

Seatwork is necessary in both small group and whole class instruction. In the former, assignments are typically aimed at keeping the kids busy while the teacher works with other groups, while in the latter the teacher is usually able to circulate among the kids while they work on the assignment (giving support and additional guidance as needed).

Sort of as a side note, the author mentions approaches like cooperative grouping that have good research records and allow for a mix of whole class, small group, and individual work without the large losses of time evident in most small group centered classrooms. Cooperative grouping, project based learning, and other similar approaches may be beneficial in part because they aren’t based on reading levels.

His last paragraph is this: “Maximize the amount of learning opportunity that you provide to students. Use groups to focus on different learning tasks or to follow up whole class lessons as needed. Don’t group for the sake of grouping and minimize grouping on the basis of reading level—at least beyond beginning reading.”

My thoughts, opinions, and questions

First of all, most of you know that I am a big fan of small group instruction in the kindergarten classroom so my thoughts, opinions, and questions will stem from that belief and my many years of experience with effective small group instruction.

It’s disconcerting to me that someone would write about this topic without having any recent research conducted in classrooms where quality small group instruction was happening and wherein students who were not currently at the small group table were engaged in worthwhile, effective learning activities. It’s disconcerting to me that the implication here is that since no researchers could find classrooms like this, it would therefore be best to conclude that all teachers do whole class instruction instead. I want to scream, “Come to my classroom! Come to my classroom and see if students make gains with their daily small group instruction!”

Also, I think it’s safe to assume that there weren’t many kindergarten classrooms in the studies, based on the quote, above, by the author, and also the fact that teaching 25 kindergarten students whole group all day would be disastrous. I have no idea how I would get to know my learners as individuals, let alone teach them at their respective levels. Of course, all-day whole class teaching has many variations, but I know what it doesn’t have; it doesn’t have the opportunity to sit with the teacher in a small group or one-on-one so she can really get to know you, both personally and as a learner. Surely it cannot provide us those special moments of connecting, building confidence, and pushing students right in their zone of proximal development.

When the author made reference to small group lessons, it made me realize that I rarely teach lessons during small group instruction. In my classroom, small groups are where students practice the lesson that I taught during whole group. If teachers teach a lesson, which could take 3-8 minutes, to three or four different small groups, then, yes, I can see why that would be inefficient and why students would ultimately receive less instruction than if the teacher taught the same lesson to all of them at the same time. But what if—like in my classroom—there is no lesson being taught? What if a small group of students arrives at my table and they all immediately get busy practicing whatever is on the agenda for the day? They are called to the table, they know exactly what to do because of the routines that are in place in the classroom, and they spend the entire time practicing and receiving one-on-one feedback? That seems like an entirely different and much more productive way to handle small group instruction. And I’m sure this is why this trend toward limiting small group instruction doesn’t make sense to me.

The comment about seatwork being aimed at keeping students busy so that the teacher can teach small groups irritated the heck out of me. We know there are classrooms where students are “reading” independently or completing worksheets that aren’t that important, but there are also classrooms where students are reading—no quotes around it this time because they really are reading and they’re reading appropriate texts and they’re held accountable for the reading they do—and are doing valuable seatwork and other activities while the teacher is teaching small groups. Many teachers also have students on technology at this time and we know there are good applications that teach students right at their level and that technology time needs to happen at some point during the day.

While I’m teaching small groups, the other students are doing important work that has to occur at some time or another. I run four centers. The first is with me, of course. I like to split my small group into two smaller groups. I typically take three students at my table and the other three read independently from their reading folders. Everything in the folders is valuable and my students need to read from them on a regular basis. Another center is with my aide, Miss Lori. This is high quality instruction in reading or math. Sometimes students work on projects at this center—art, holiday gifts, science—that we definitely could not get accomplished with the whole group all at once. My third center is the independent center. I want students working with no help from us. I want them working together, solving problems together, learning how to complete tasks within the given 15-minute time. This involves persistence and risk-taking and focus, all skills that wouldn’t be exercised during small group with the teacher or whole group with the teacher. And the last center is a variety of things, but often it is an opportunity to play, to move around on the floor, and to use other parts of the brain and body.

What happens during my small groups cannot happen during whole group instruction. Mondays are typically phonics practice and review, blending and reading words, and book reading (depending on the time of year), all with immediate feedback. How do you listen to—let alone provide immediate feedback/individualized instruction to—the entire class at once? On Tuesdays and Fridays students get a chance to advance through phonemic awareness training levels or pass a word list they’ve been working on. I just can’t visualize doing this without the small group structure. On Wednesdays, students read continuous text. Again, I want to listen to them—every part of it—and provide immediate feedback and instruction. Thursdays are reserved for learning to spell and write sentences. Yes, we have whole group writing every day, but I can’t give students the boost they need during that time. That needs to happen during small groups.

While whole group is a great way to deliver lessons and information, it is not an effective way to ensure that every student gets to practice skills at their level and receive feedback from the teacher. It would be impossible to even determine exact levels without having the opportunity to sit with students one-on-one. I quit doing Heggerty phonemic awareness for these reasons. It’s a whole group activity and it’s very difficult to tell who is participating, who really gets it, who needs more practice, and to give them more practice. I now do phonemic awareness training twice a week during small groups and it is one-on-one and my students made amazing progress, many of them getting up into advanced phonemic awareness tasks that are typically reserved for first and second grade.

Again, to reiterate, I didn’t get the feeling that the studies mentioned involved many kindergarten classrooms. Nor do I feel that the recommendation for more whole group instruction is necessarily directed toward kindergarten teachers. First through twelfth grades are a different story altogether. In fact, after reading these two articles, I could possibly get on board with amping up whole group instruction time in the grades beyond kindergarten.

My monologue was lengthy. Sorry, not sorry. I knew I would be opinionated about this. Though I am intrigued and better understand now the basis for this movement away from small groups, I will not acquiesce to this latest trend; I will definitely be continuing with small group instruction in my kindergarten classroom.

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How to Make Reading Instruction Much, Much More Efficient: Scaling back small-group instruction would have dramatic improvements in literacy by Mike Schmoker, appearing in Education Week, November 19, 2019

This article starts off with the dismal facts about reading achievement in this country. Most educators, the author says, acknowledge the need for intensive, systematic phonics instruction. They also know that students need to read and talk and write far more than they currently do. There is wide agreement that all of these elements must be in place for K-3 students to acquire the fluency, knowledge, and vocabulary needed to become literate and articulate. However, we’ve yet to capitalize on this consensus. Or to see what prevents us from acting on it—the typical K-3 literacy block and our overhyped commercial literacy programs. In his opinion, the problem is the pervasiveness of small-group, ability-based instruction promoted in reading programs and played out in most literacy blocks.

The most successful K-3 teachers he has observed use small groups sparingly. That’s because their whole-class instruction consistently incorporates the most proven elements of successful teaching and they master simple methods for ensuring that all students are attentive.

In a two-hour reading block, five groups of students will receive about 20 minutes of reading instruction per day. In a classroom that uses small groups more sparingly, students will receive about 80 minutes—three to four times as much. This would allow for huge infusions of instructional time into the essential components of literacy.

The core elements of literacy seldom get the time they deserve in most K-3 classrooms or by “our inordinately praised commercial programs.” Shifting to larger amounts of well-executed, whole-class instruction would result in immense benefits K-3.

Are students learning at our now-ubiquitous independent learning centers, which are set up with materials for students to work on independently while the teacher works with small groups? “According to the studies,” writes literacy expert Timothy Shanahan, time spent away from the teacher should not be considered a productive part of the school day. The author states that he “consistently observes students languishing at these unsupervised centers, ambling slowly from station to station, aimlessly turning pages or talking quietly with a partner instead of reading.”

What should be done? What is the conclusion? Brush up on your skills in working with larger groups and use the windfall of precious time to multiply the amount of instruction you can provide.

My thoughts, opinions, and questions

First of all, I like this guy’s style. He hardly mentions studies; he just tells it as it is based on his own research. While I do read the research and take it into consideration, I consider myself a researcher and my own conclusions just as important—if not more so—since I live and breathe kindergarten and have for many years now. The author is straightforward and tells it as it is. Reading achievement in this country is horrible. Embarrassing. And we could easily remedy that by making one big change in our instruction—moving from “worthless” centers to more whole group instruction, quality whole group instruction, that is.

Being that I’m not a big fan of commercial reading programs, I appreciate his innuendos about them: “overhyped commercial literacy programs” and “our inordinately praised commercial programs.” But that’s another topic.

He implies that if a teacher’s whole group instruction covers all of the components of reading instruction and they’re good at managing the whole group and ensuring that all students are engaged that there is no need for small group instruction. I disagree. My whole group instruction is amazing. I’m not bragging; I’m just saying that if for some reason that’s all I could do, I could probably get by and still get good results. But why would I discontinue small group instruction where I can really get to know my students on a personal level and a more academic level? My students love when I call them to my table for small groups or for one-on-one interventions. Why would I ever deny them—or myself—this opportunity?

I understand what he’s saying about the core elements of literacy instruction not getting the time they deserve. But I also feel that an effective teacher will ensure that all areas of literacy are covered. And an effective teacher also ensures that small group instruction is worth the “sacrifice” of the other students not spending time with her. Timothy Shanahan, please visit my classroom before proclaiming that “time spent away from the teacher should not be considered a productive part of the school day.”

I can’t imagine kindergartners spending every minute with the teacher. My job is to teach them to be independent, to do some learning on their own, to problem solve without an adult’s intervention, to have time to hang out and converse with their peers.

In my opinion, both of these articles reiterate how different kindergarten is from the other grade levels. You can’t include kindergarten in recommendations for K-12 or even K-3. And I cannot take seriously recommendations for instruction based on what has been observed happening in so-so classrooms. In my opinion, instead of saying that small group instruction is not worth the time and is not effective, let’s instead talk about how to make both whole group instruction and small group instruction—including what the rest of the students are doing—more effective. Centers do not need to be structured in such a way that students can wander from one to the next, never getting anything accomplished.

And there’s one last thing that hasn’t really been talked about. We all know that student misbehavior often stems from frustration—the work is too hard for them—or boredom—the work is too easy for them. A mostly one-size-fits-all whole group instruction model would tend to lead to disengagement and off-task behaviors. Small group instruction is a structure that allows me to discover what I need to know about my students so I can then teach them in their zone of proximal development, that sweet spot where they feel perfectly challenged, confident, and successful.

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This is a hot topic for me and I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions. Thanks!

Randee