Reading instruction and placing students into groups emphasizes a plethora of approaches. Each method of grouping for instructional purposes should stress providing for learners' individual purposes. Which plans are appropriate for grouping students for reading instruction? Team teaching has many advocates, but it has both advantages and…

Focuses on three books that tackle what it means to effectively organize classrooms for literacy instruction. Notes that these texts emphasize the role of teachers as researchers working in collaboration with one another and with university researchers. (SG)

This paper discusses how to group students for reading instruction. The paper first considers the reasons for heterogeneous grouping, where there are mixed levels of reading achievement among the students in the classroom. It then discusses some weaknesses in advocating heterogeneous grouping. There are individualized plans for reading instruction…

The concept of open or progressive education has come to mean that to learn one needs no discipline, no systematic organization, no planning. However, there is a middle, or at least another ground, between the ends of laissez faire and authoritarianism. It has to do with the structure of process. For example, the Key Vocabulary of Sylvia…

Describes a teacher's experiences in a multigrade intermediate grade mountain schoolhouse. Notes that teaching difficulties were overcome by (1) organizing time and contracting with students; (2) learning from students about what to teach; and (3) using language that invites and includes students. Explains how these techniques aid reading and…

The results of an earlier experimental study of the effectiveness of a set of principles for small group instruction in first grade reading groups called for a revision of the list of principles. Revised principles were written for (1) group organization (seating, transitions, starting the lesson); (2) the introduction of lessons and activities…

This paper raises a series of questions about the nature of classroom instruction, in general, and about mathematics and reading instruction in the lower elementary school grades, in particular. It focuses on such aspects of the social organization of instruction as (1) the diversity of student populations, (2) the motivating force behind…

Offers suggestions for organizing the primary classroom to provide ideal conditions for teaching reading. (DF)

Discusses thematic centers in which teachers select a theme and design of several classroom stations on the topic. Describes application of the technique in one Canadian class of six-, seven-, and eight-year olds, many of whom were English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. Identifies characteristics of the technique. (SG)