Reading Strategy Groups: Small Group Comprehension - CHARACTERS

With differentiated passages and small group lessons, these reading strategy groups can transform how you teach about characters. You no longer need to look for reading passages or think of reading comprehension questions for your reading groups. You get 16 print-and-go small group comprehension lessons about characters, character traits, inferring, and more!

Every small group reading lesson included DIRECTLY teaches the reading skills your students need! That means more time teaching small groups, and less time planning for guided reading. Since each small group lesson includes differentiated passages and skill-based lessons, you do not need to gather books or extra materials for these reading groups.

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ARE READING STRATEGY GROUPS DIFFERENT FROM GUIDED READING GROUPS?

Yes. Reading strategy groups rely on directly teaching your students a reading strategy or skill. This type of reading group is not strictly confined to the student’s reading level like it can be with guided reading. Strategy groups should be flexible so that we can get far, far away from kids who identify as a level, such as “I’m in the purple reading group” or “I am supposed to read level M books.”

Reading strategy groups rely on you knowing what your individual students need to work on. Do you have a few students who struggle with inferring? Let’s work on it together in reading groups. Do you have a group of students who cannot use text evidence to describe characters? Let’s work on it in reading groups. Do you have students who are ready to start describing compare characters from different texts? Let’s work on it in reading groups.

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EVERY SKILL-BASED, SMALL GROUP COMPREHENSION LESSON INCLUDES:

• STEP 1: INTRODUCE Quick tasks that introduce the ONE focused reading strategy or skill of the lesson.

• STEP 2: READ Differentiated passages (three levels) that include the direct, skill-based prompts needed to fully practice the reading strategy. The focus of every lesson can be applied using the included reading passages. This saves you TIME because you no longer need to search for suitable texts or passages.

• STEP 3: INDEPENDENT PRACTICE At the end of the small group time, send your students off with an exit slip for accountability practice. They will use this exit slip when they apply the skills from the small group reading lesson to their own independent reading.

• Also includes… Printable anchor charts for every lesson, conferring note pages, and lesson planning pages are all included.

Everything in here is ready to go for your reading groups. All you need to do choose which students would benefit from any of the 16 print-and-go reading group lessons included.

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WHAT 16 SMALL GROUP COMPREHENSION LESSONS ARE INCLUDED?

• Use the Illustrations
• Character Expressions
• Character Feelings
• Feelings Can Change
• Think and Speak Like the Character
• The Storyteller's Point of View
• Guessing a Character's Thoughts
• Introduction to Inferring
• Inferring Character Traits
• Inner Traits vs. Outer Traits
• Going Deeper with Inferring
• Describe Characters Using Text Evidence
• Ask and Answer Questions
• Sometimes Characters Repeat Patterns
• Character Motivation
• Compare Characters

(Note: You can go in ANY order and skip any lessons that your students do not need.)

WANT TO TRY A ★FREE★ SAMPLE READING GROUP LESSON?

• PLOT VS. THEME FREE STRATEGY GROUP LESSON

LOOKING FOR A READING STRATEGY GROUP BUNDLE?

• ­→ Reading Strategy Groups: MEGA BUNDLE (101 small group lessons)
• → Reading Strategy Groups: NON-FICTION BUNDLE
• → Reading Strategy Groups: FICTION BUNDLE

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WHAT GRADE LEVEL ARE THESE SMALL GROUPS FOR?

The content is most appropriate for grades 2-4. However, you may have students in other grade levels that need lessons in this area. In the preview, you can see exactly which lessons are recommended for grade 2, grade 3, and grade 4.

All of the differentiated passages come in these three levels:

• LEVEL 1 reading passages (denoted in the lower right hand corner of the passage with ❍) are recommended for students meeting a 2nd grade reading level. The Lexile range is 400-500L.

• LEVEL 2 reading passages (denoted with ❍ ❍) are recommended for students meeting a 3rd grade reading level. The Lexile range is 500-700L.

• LEVEL 3 reading passages (denoted with ❍ ❍ ❍) are recommended for students meeting a 4th grade reading level. The Lexile range is 800-1000L.

The variety of reading levels in the differentiated passages makes it so easy to meet your range of learners. If you teach 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade, you have passages for all students who meet grade level. But then if you have students reading above or below grade level, you have passages that can meet them where you are. No more searching for texts that match your lessons AND have passages at the right level. Everything is already done for you!

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DOES THIS DOWNLOAD INCLUDE A DISTANCE LEARNING OPTION? Yes! In addition to the traditional printable pack included, the small group lessons in this download can also be assigned via Google slides or Google Classroom, which makes it very versatile for digital distance learning.

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WANT MORE SMALL GROUP COMPREHENSION LESSONS LIKE THIS?
I have more than 100 small group reading lessons written for teachers like you who want to save TIME with direct, skill-based instruction using reading strategy groups. Everything is differentiated, including the reading passages that come with every lesson. You can go in any order or skip lessons that that your students do not need.

• Unit 1: Reading Foundation(5 reading group lessons)
• Unit 2: Understanding Characters (16 reading group lessons)
• Unit 3: Text Features and Text Structure (17 reading group lessons)
• Unit 4: Vocabulary and Figurative Language(9 reading group lessons)
• Unit 5: Main Idea and Key Details(17 reading group lessons)
• Unit 6:  Fluency (10 reading group lessons)
• Unit 7: Theme (9 reading group lessons)
• Unit 8:  Author's Purpose (6 reading group lessons)
• Unit 9: Story Elements and Summarizing (14 reading group lessons)

AVAILABLE IN READING STRATEGY GROUP BUNDLES!

• ­Reading Strategy Groups: MEGA BUNDLE (101 small group lessons)
• Reading Strategy Groups: NON-FICTION BUNDLE
• Reading Strategy Groups: FICTION BUNDLE

WANT TO TRY A ★FREE★ SAMPLE READING GROUP LESSON?

• PLOT VS. THEME FREE STRATEGY GROUP LESSON

WANT MORE LESSONS TO MATCH THESE READING GROUPS?

I have reading lessons for teaching these lessons to your WHOLE CLASS! For every reading strategy group lesson, there is an optional WHOLE CLASS Interactive Read Aloud lesson found here:

→ Interactive Read Aloud BUNDLE

For a quick DAILY READING BELL RINGER that spiral reviews the skills from your reading strategy groups, here are reading warm ups that PERFECTLY align with these reading strategy groups:

→ 3rd Grade Daily Reading Warm-Ups

→ 4th Grade Daily Reading Warm-Ups

YOU CAN ALSO FIND THESE READING STRATEGY GROUPS, INTERACTIVE READ ALOUDS, AND DAILY READING WARM UPS IN MY COMPREHENSION BUNDLES:

→ 3rd Grade Curriculum Bundle

→4th Grade Curriculum Bundle

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STILL UNSURE?

Check out this small group free sample to see if this will work for you!

- Alyssha Swanson

Teaching and Tapas