Grouping to Differentiate With ELLs in Mind

Here are a few rules-of-thumb for responsible, effective group management:

• Keep the groups small
• Work or participate within the groups as you circulate them
• Take plenty of anecdotal notes and glean other formative data when circulating
• Remain flexible about how you place students, moving them as needed or shifting groups around depending on the group goals (project, assignment, or socially driven)
• Rotate or jigsaw groups to keep them lively

Differentiated Group Lesson Example:

First 10 to 15 minutes of class:

1. Lesson overview, mini-lesson, extraction of prior knowledge from students via interactive KWL or discussion focused on prior knowledge related to the upcoming lesson or content.
2. Students participate in a teacher-led lesson with same content but differentiated instructional pacing or scaffolded support specific to students' needs.
3. Other students work in preassigned groups for independent study or on assigned cooperative learning/collaborative tasks with peer partners.
4. Students may be in different places, with some reviewing work from previous tasks and making adjustments, others engaging in peer review for editing and revision, some conferring with the teacher in a teacher-led group, and others working ahead of on scaffolded activities to catch up.
5. Students work to complete assignments at staggered times and work effectively at different places within the same assignment with varying start and finish times.

Marzano, R. J. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Radencich, M. C., L. J. McKay, and J. R. Paratore, "Keeping Flexible Groups Flexible," 27-29.*

More Grouping Considerations

Develop peer leaders for each group and rotate this role so that all, or most, have an opportunity to experience peer leadership:

• Develop problem solvers in a similar way, jigsawing this opportunity for all students.
• As needed group by boys and girls
• Consider grouping for energy levels, integrating high energy students with lower energy for a healthy mix of group synergy.
• Consider background experience and other languages spoken when making placement decisions.
• Consider cognitive abilities, but do not base groups solely using cognitive criteria.
• Consider creative and artistic talents when placing students in groups
• Keep varied levels of expectations for task completion
• Create environments where all learners experienced some type of success
• Use and make available reading and resource materials (primary and secondary source documents for example) at multiple reading levels
• Create literacy centers with varied tasks designated to match students’ readiness, interest and learning style preferences
• Use small groups to re-teach those in need of re-teaching

Small groups were found to be as successful as one-on-one conferences (Greenwood, et al., 2003 in: Tobin & McInnes, 2008), particularly when instruction was focused on addressing phonics, decoding, and fluency in reading. When placing students in early reading groups consider the following:

• Flexible grouping
• Ongoing assessment and progress monitoring
• Multiple text availability at various reading levels
• Intensive one-to-one instruction in word-study with repeated readings to build fluency
• Group guided reading practice with a focus on student engagement
• In-class coaching and modeling of differentiated strategies for teachers