There are many instructional methods that facilitate reading habits early on in students. When parents aim for homeschooling their children, group reading strategies offer a good foundation to help children build their vocabulary and develop a love for reading. Rhythmical and repetitive language are seen as the basics for teaching young children how to read in a group setting and allow them to expand their reading knowledge. Having an intimate smaller reading group can also hone an inclusive environment that helps parents and teachers alike identify the strength and weaknesses of each student’s reading habits.

All Reading Groups Start With Engagement

One of the biggest factors in ensuring that students interact and participate in reading groups is honing engagement. Students need to feel curious, interested, and emotionally moved by the content they read. This is the only way that they become willing participants in a reading group, therefore, it all starts with engaging reading text and motivation through imagery, characters, and topics found in the material.

3 Effective Small-Scale Group Reading Strategies

Social and emotional learning are the ideal outcomes of any small-scale group reading environment. Students reading in groups are able to develop better comprehension skills, enrich their vocabulary, and promote oral language.

1. It Starts With Posing Divergent Questions

Teachers have the responsibility of asking the right questions that push boundaries and encourage students to look beyond the surface of the read text. It is crucial to pose questions that are debatable and don’t necessarily have a clear answer. Any questions where the information is easily gleaned from the text simply won’t serve as a solid learning experience. Students should use differential thinking and their background knowledge to arrive at a conclusive answer to a posed question. Oftentimes, authors do a solid job of conveying the true meaning behind their written text and those with basic skills to read-between-the-lines will have the skills to answer teachers.

Researchers have found that many teachers use convergent questions when placing students into reading groups. However, questions that require divergent thinking skills are the ones that truly educate students and add value to their curriculum. Convergent questions almost always have answers that are well defined as long as students have the ability to analyze the written text. On the other hand, divergent questions require critical thinking skills and will often have infinite answers that are based on the knowledge, age, and interpretation of the reader.

All questions that are meant as divergent should ask students to dig beyond the obvious and beneath the surface. Questions that ask students what they think, how they feel, what might happen if…, or simply asking them to highlight words or phrases that support their stance on a topic can help them think creatively.

The best reading group questions are ones without a concrete correct answer. Questions that have a limited number of responses or a simple answer will cause students to become discouraged during the group activity. When there’s a correct answer, students are less engaged as they feel discouraged if they’re unsure of their answer or simply don’t have one.

2. Encourage Students To Ask Their Own Questions

Teachers should always ask the most questions to help facilitate learning, but students should also experience what it’s like to become questioners themselves. All small-group reading strategies should provide students with the opportunity to participate and ask their own questions of the teacher and peers alike.

A great example of an effective use of this strategy is asking for a student to take on the personality of one of the characters in the story and allowing other students to ask the character questions. In instances where non-fiction text is used, it’s important to ask students to pose questions if certain aspects of the text are unclear or require more elaboration. During this time, the teacher or parent present has the role of being the guide and the other students are responsible for directing their questions. When students are directly involved in asking questions, they also learn to think creatively.

All forms of learning, whether reading or otherwise, should provide deeper meaning for students. This is the only way they remember the information they’ve read. Active engagement and deeper thinking are just two of the major advantages of allowing students to participate as questioners in the reading group. Additionally, this type of engagement also helps hone collaboration and team building skills necessary to succeed in other parts of life.

3. Social And Emotional Learning Are Priorities

Living in a modern complex world requires students to have defined emotional skills which are effectively learned through group reading strategies. For teachers, it’s crucial to select stories or books that weave coping and emotional skills into the storyline. Purposefully written text is one that’s able to provide context for students and allow them to get exposed to social and emotional learning.

For example, a Georgia State University professor by the name of Peggy Albers has found through her research that children glean their behavioral and thinking skills directly from the characters they’re exposed to in stories. Students are constantly exposed to emotional struggles, but when they become aware of an emotion through reading, it creates awareness and understanding of their own feelings. Though the emotions in stories aren’t that of the students themselves, it does help children proactively connect with characters by seeing things from a different perspective. Educating the feelings of students is just as important, if not more, than any other type of learning in a group environment.

How To Engage Young Readers Through Group Reading

Children often develop learning problems at an early age if their lack of reading skills aren’t adequately addressed by teachers and adults alike. For example, some children tend to have issues with tracking text or even identify numbers backwards. These reading problems usually present themselves around age 7 or 8. There are certain group strategies that are effective for engaging even students with weak reading skills, and eventually, these students develop a greater understanding of literacy on the whole.

  • Rhyme, Rhythm, and Repetition: These 3 R’s are a crucial way to help students develop fluency and cadence by understanding the flow of sentences. Through rhyme and rhythm, children are able to learn progressively, while built-in repetition cements thoughts or ideas into their minds. Repetition is also responsible for vocabulary building and familiarizing students with the words they’re regularly exposed to.
  • Reading Aloud: One of the best ways to start engaging children with reading early on is for parents or teachers to read aloud. 15 minutes a day is all it takes to help encourage literacy from a very early age. Pointing out words as well as pictures and routinely engaging young readers is a great way to enhance their own literacy skills. It’s always crucial to start with the 3 R’s as they help young readers mentally fill in the blanks and recognize line after line of thought.
  • Begin Every Book With The Cover: Though teachers tend to reinforce the belief that no one should judge a book by its cover, this isn’t always the case. Before reading the text inside of a book, discussing the title and the cover can set the stage for younger readers. *Practice Sight Words And Vocabulary: Flashcards are still to this day the most effective learning tools that allow students to acquaint themselves with the words they’re exposed to. Playing memory games and openly quizzing students during group activities will help them effectively learn sight words. Some children may have trouble recognizing or sounding words aloud, and in these instances, color coding the words themselves can help with sight word recognition. *Reading Chunking And Honing Comprehension: In order for students to have the ability to debate or creatively think about the text they’ve read, it’s crucial to hone their comprehension skills. One way to do this is through chunking, which entails reading anywhere from three to five words at a time and asking questions about the sentence that was read aloud. Asking about the meaning of the sentence helps reinforce students with the ability to comprehend what they’ve read and it also allows parents and teachers to have an effective literacy measuring tool.

Finding Interesting Reading Materials

Though books are always a traditional source of learning, some students may respond better to comic books or graphic novels. It’s crucial to consider the hobbies and interests of all children involved in the reading group. Younger readers are especially more likely to feel engaged when the reading materials are in line with their own personal interests.

For reading groups where interests and hobbies are varied, it’s advisable to alternate reading materials. By sourcing different novels, stories, and books, all students involved will feel as if they’re important and allow themselves to get more emotionally invested into the group.

Literacy is a crucial part of education and these skills are learned through repetition, understanding, and group activities. Many teachers agree that group reading is an effective way to engage students and allow them to think creatively, while also helping the rest of the team become better readers.