Reading strategy groups are the instructional practice of reading with students. Strategy groups are a key component of a balanced literacy program. Reading strategy groups are similar to guided reading groups in that they are both effective methods of small group instruction designed to meet the varying needs of students. Guided reading groups and strategy groups, however, differ in several ways. Whereas guided reading groups are a grouping of students who share a similar instructional reading level, strategy groups are typically a grouping of students who vary in reading level but share the same strategy need. A more proficient reader, for example, could be grouped together with a more struggling reader for a fluency strategy group that targets their similar need for reading expressively.

In a balanced literacy curriculum, teachers use ongoing assessment data gathered during small group work (e.g., guided reading groups, strategy groups), one on one conferences and running records to plan for both guided reading and strategy groups. Although the strategies taught during strategy groups and guided reading groups often overlap, strategies taught in reading strategy groups tend to address fluency and comprehension needs while those emphasized during guided reading are usually word attack, comprehension and fluency strategies.

The explicit strategy instruction of strategy groups and guided reading groups is ciritcal since research shows that proficient readers share a similar set of reading skills and strategies that they use to make meaning of texts read. Ellen Keene and Susan Zimmerman (2007), two well respected educators, distilled the reading process down to seven reading skills proficient readers use to construct meaning from texts. They found that readers must: activate prior knowledge; determine the most important ideas and themes in a text; create visual and sensory images before, during and after reading; draw inferences from the text; retell and synthesize what they have read; and use fix-up strategies when comprehension breaks down. When teaching these specific reading skills, it therefore, makes sense to assemble only those students who are in need of extra practice on an identified skill. Similarly, strategy groups are also used to provide enrichment for students who have already mastered certain skills.

Strategy groups, like guided reading groups, often follow a particular architecture. The teacher, for example, usually begins the session by naming the strategy the students will learn, demonstrating the identified needed strategy and then spends the remaining time observing and guiding students as they individually practice and apply the strategy to a text being read. The texts students read during strategy groups reflect their independent reading level and are usually from their "bag of books", whereas the texts used during guided reading are those at the students instructional reading level and ones the teacher pre-selects and introduces as part of the session.

The goal of strategy group instruction, as in all reading instruction is for students to transfer and independently apply the strategies learned to all reading texts.

 

Fountas, I, & Pinnell, G. S. (2006). Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Goudvis, A. & Harvey S. (2005). The Comprehension Toolkit. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Goudvis, A. & Harvey, S. (2008). Primary Comprehension Toolkit. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Keene, E. & Zimmerman, S. (2007). Mosaic of Thought (2nd Edition). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Taberski, S. (2009). It's All About Comprehension. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.