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After only a few days of school, we are already having students complete beginning of the year benchmark assessents. These assessments are important for getting the baseline for each student for the year, so we can see their growth throughout. They are, also, an important tool for finding out our students’ strengths and weaknesses to be used to inform our instruction. Furthermore, these results will be used to help form small groups for differentiated instruction.
I chose this topic to write about this week because I am in the midst of this now! I will do my best to write this in a way that it can be used regardless of the benchmark assessments your district uses. Now, I will share step-by-step the process I use for interpreting test results to form small groups for reading. However, this same process can be used for math.
Step 1
Before you can interpret test results, the test must be administered to your students. Assessments can be administered in many ways, including one-on-one, small group, or on a device. Do the best you can to minimize disruption to your students during this time. Also, tell your students to do their best, but that it is ok if they do not know the answers. The test is not for a grade and it is only being used to see what they know. Hopefully, that will alleviate any test anxiety some students may have.
Step 2
Create a spreadsheet (Google Sheets, Excel) for recording results in one place. Most districts have more than one assessment for measuring student learning or, at least, more than one category that learning is measured in. Include columns at the top that correspond to the data you will be using to help form your groups. For example, in my district we use i-Ready, so I have a column for the i-Ready score and a column for the percentile. I, also, have the spreadsheet set up to add color to show low, medium, and high scores. Having all the data from your assessments on one spreadsheet will make it easier. You won’t have to flip between a bunch of screens and reports to see all your data for each student. And BONUS, you can sort your data from lowest to highest in any column you choose with just a push of a button!
Step 3
Choose by which column you want to sort your data, if using more than one assessment. Then, sort that column from lowest to highest. That will give an idea of how to start grouping your students.
Step 4
Decide if you need any further details on your students in order to group them. For instance, you may want to use the PAST or Phonics Survey from LETRS to get a better idea of the skills they are lacking. This is, also, a place where you may print a report from a computerized test. Choose a report that breaks down the score into subskills or categories.
Step 5
If you chose to use another assessment to get further details, administer those now. If not, skip to step 6.
Step 6
Now you can take the students you sorted on your spreadsheet and divide them into groups based on the skill/s they need most. The amount of students that are in each group can vary, but be sure your students with the highest need are in the smallest groups. For instance, you have 8 students that scored in the 1-10% range and 3 of those need phonemic awareness skills based on the PAST results and 5 need to work on cvc words based on Phonics Survey results. That would be your first two groups. Continue in this way until your whole class is sorted into groups.
Step 7
Remember your groups should change fairly often based on student need. However, I know that can be difficult to do when students leave the classroom for other pull-outs at specific times. Do the best you can with that and give yourself some grace. That is most often out of your control what times students are pulled out, however it doesn’t hurt to be in good communication with your support staff about what you are noticing in the classroom. Sometimes changes are able to be made to accomodate what you need for your students.
Conclusion
These are the steps I followed when I was a classroom teacher and I follow them now as a reading interventionist, just on a larger scale. My reading intervention spreadsheet encompasses all the grades we serve at my school with a tab for each grade. Then, I follow the same process outlined above.
Having your small groups formed intentionally by skills will help your students to make gains faster and make lesson planning easier for you. It, also, aligns with teaching using the science of reading.
If you are a new teacher who was unsure of how to build your small groups, I hope this guide was able to give you clear instructions on how to do just that, along with the reasoning behind it. If you are an experienced teacher, I hope you feel validated in what you already do and, perhaps, gain a few new ideas. Interested in reading more about using data to inform your instruction? Check out my post Using Data Effectively!
