Small group instruction is probably built into your literacy block—but have you ever stopped to ask: What is the actual purpose of small groups?

For years, Emily knew she was supposed to teach small groups, but she wasn't always sure what students should actually be doing once they got to the teacher table. Like many teachers, she focused on creating groups, planning rotations, finding leveled texts, and managing the rest of the class. But the most important question often got overlooked: What do these students need to practice with my support?

In this episode, Emily breaks down the real purpose of small group instruction and shares a simple mindset shift that can completely change the way you plan. Small group isn't a curriculum or a specific type of lesson. It's an instructional structure that gives students more opportunities to practice a targeted skill while you observe, provide immediate feedback, and adjust your instruction based on what you notice.

You'll also learn why strong small group instruction starts with specific student needs (not reading levels) and how using multiple layers of data can help you pinpoint exactly what students need to practice.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The real purpose of small group instruction—and why it's not simply getting every student to the teacher table
• Why small group is an instructional structure, not a curriculum
• How small groups increase opportunities for meaningful student practice
• Why immediate, precise feedback is one of the biggest benefits of teaching students in a smaller setting
• The planning shift from “What am I going to teach?” to “What do my students need to practice with my support?”
• Why effective small groups should be flexible and responsive to what you notice about your students

Next week, we're wrapping up our Small Group Success series with a special guest! You're not going to want to miss that!

Resources Mentioned:

Small Group Success Checklist: stellarteacher.com/smallgroup

Small group instruction is a regular part of many literacy blocks—but what actually makes a small group effective? And do you really need to meet with every student every day?

In this episode, Emily is joined by Dr. Julia Lindsey to rethink some of the traditional ways teachers approach small group reading instruction. Instead of starting with rotations, reading levels, or the pressure to get every student to the teacher table, Julia encourages teachers to start with something much more important: the specific needs of their students.

Julia shares why small group instruction is most powerful when it gives teachers an opportunity to differentiate instruction, provide immediate feedback, and target the skills students need additional support with. She also explains why small groups don't have to look the way they've always looked—and why it's okay if every student doesn't meet with you every day.

You'll also hear practical advice for using assessment data and informal observations to make instructional decisions, managing the rest of your class while you're meeting with a group, and designing a small group schedule around your students rather than trying to fit your students into a predetermined schedule.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why effective small group instruction starts with student needs, not a predetermined schedule or rotation
• How small groups give teachers an opportunity to differentiate instruction and provide immediate, precise feedback
• Why you don't have to meet with every student every day for small group instruction to be effective
• How to use assessment data and informal observations to identify targeted skills for small group practice
• Why reading comprehension is complex—and what that means when you're deciding what to teach in a small group
• How a triage approach can help you prioritize which students need additional teacher support
• Why knowing your readers is one of the most important parts of making small group instruction more effective
• How to rethink traditional small group structures and create an approach that works for the students in front of you

If small groups have ever left you feeling like you need to do more, meet with more students, or somehow fit more rotations into an already packed literacy block, this conversation is your reminder that small group instruction is a tool you can use—not a structure you have to serve. Focus on knowing your students, identifying what they need, and designing your instruction from there.

Resources Mentioned:

Small Group Success Checklist: stellarteacher.com/smallgroup

Check out the Stellar Literacy Collective: stellarteacher.com/join

Have you ever sat down to teach a small group only to realize you’re spending half your attention wondering what the rest of your class is doing?

Maybe students are interrupting you with questions. Someone is suddenly wandering around the room. Another student has been “working” on the same question for 20 minutes. And you’re starting to wonder: How am I supposed to actually teach my small group AND manage everyone else?

If small groups feel harder than you expected, it doesn’t mean you’re doing them wrong.

In this episode, Sara and Emily are wrapping up our Small Group Success series by tackling one of the biggest challenges of small group instruction: managing the rest of your class while you’re teaching.

And we’re starting with a reminder we think more teachers need to hear: You have flexibility.

If your students can’t successfully work independently for 45 minutes, don’t ask them to. If they can handle 15 minutes, teach a 15-minute small group and then bring everyone back together. You don’t have to force your students into a small group schedule just because you think that’s what small groups are “supposed” to look like.

We also talk about why you don’t need to meet with every student in a small group. Instead, ask yourself: Which students actually need additional practice with my support? Your goal isn’t to fit every student into a rotation—it’s to use your instructional time where it will have the greatest impact.

From there, we’re sharing simple, practical ways to make small group time run more smoothly. We talk about explicitly teaching expectations, giving students plenty of opportunities to practice being independent, creating a plan for what students should do when they need help, and using visual cues to reduce interruptions.

And before you create an elaborate new reward system or classroom management plan, Sara has an important reminder: keep it simple. The behavior systems you already use may be all you need. Small groups don’t have to become one more complicated thing for you to manage.

Finally, we share a quick reflection routine that can help students take more ownership over small group time and recognize that what they’re doing while you’re teaching matters, too.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to structure small groups around what your students can realistically handle
• Why you don’t have to meet with every student in a small group
• How to set clear expectations for independent work time
• Simple ways to reduce interruptions while you’re teaching
• Why you probably don’t need another behavior management system
• How a two-minute reflection can help students take more ownership

If small groups haven’t been working the way you hoped, you don’t need to throw out the whole idea or assume you’re doing something wrong.

You know your students best.

Give yourself permission to adjust the schedule, shorten the independent work time, rethink who actually needs a small group, and create routines that work for the students sitting in your classroom.

Small groups don’t have to look perfect. They need to work for you and your students.

The Stellar Literacy Collective - stellarteacher.com/join

Episode 331 - Writing Is Complex: The Hidden Skills Students Need to Become Strong Writers with Melanie Meehan and Maggie Beattie Roberts

Writing is complex. When students struggle to get their ideas onto paper, the challenge may go deeper than simply needing more writing practice.

In this episode, Emily is joined by literacy experts and authors Melanie Meehan and Maggie Beattie Roberts to explore the hidden skills that help students become strong writers. They unpack how oral language, transcription, executive functioning, and working memory all impact students’ ability to write.

• The connection between reading and writing.
• How oral language and verbal rehearsal support student writers.
• Why handwriting, spelling, and other transcription skills still matter in upper elementary.
• How cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory show up during writing.
• How to identify where a student is getting stuck.
• Why short, intentional practice helps writing skills become more automatic.

Writing asks students to juggle a lot at once. This conversation will help you better understand what might be happening beneath the surface and identify the support your students need to become stronger, more confident writers.

• The Stellar Literacy Collective - stellarteacher.com/join
• Free Sentence Writing Routine Sample - stellarteacher.com/sentences
• Melanie Meehan - melaniemeehan.com
• Maggie Beattie Roberts - kateandmaggie.com
• Foundational Skills for Writing - https://foundationalskillsforwriting.my.canva.site/

Picture this. It’s October, and you give your third, fourth, or fifth graders a simple writing prompt. You pick up the first paper and it’s one sentence long. Or it’s one very, very long sentence held together by “and then, and then, and then,” with a capital letter at the start and a period at the very end. And you’re thinking, wait... didn’t you already learn this?

In this episode, Emily is breaking down four foundational writing skills we often assume students mastered in kindergarten through second grade. Our K to 2 colleagues work hard to lay that foundation, but upper elementary writing asks a lot more of those early skills: longer pieces, bigger ideas, and more to juggle all at once. When that load goes up, a skill that once looked solid can start to wobble.

Emily shares how to spot each skill quickly in your own classroom, plus simple, repeatable routines to strengthen it without throwing out your writing curriculum. She also connects back to the spinning plates analogy from episode 330 with Melanie Meehan and Maggie Beattie Roberts.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why students who write complete sentences on a worksheet still turn in fragments and run-ons on a blank page
• How verbal rehearsal, find and fix a fragment, and growing a kernel sentence build stronger sentence writers
• Why handwriting and spelling still matter in upper elementary, and how transcription can use up a student’s working memory
• How because, but, so and sentence combining help students connect their ideas
• How a simple plan and one question, “Does this prove my point?”, help students stay on topic
• The 10-minute activity to try this week that shows you more about your writers than a full essay

If your students’ writing falls apart and you’re not sure why, this episode is a reminder that taught and mastered aren’t the same thing. The good news is that short, consistent routines can strengthen these foundations right inside what you’re already doing.

Resources Mentioned:

⭐ Free Sentence Writing Routine Sample: https://www.stellarteacher.com/sentence

⭐ The Stellar Literacy Collective: https://www.stellarteacher.com/join

Have you ever listened to a student give a thoughtful, detailed answer at your small group table... only to get one sentence back on paper? You know the thinking is there. So where did it go?

In this episode, Emily is breaking down what’s happening when a student can tell you the answer but can’t write it. Drawing on the Simple View of Writing from researcher Virginia Berninger and her colleagues, she explains why writing asks so much more of students than talking does. Then she walks through the three places an answer can get lost between a student’s head and the page: handwriting and spelling, composition, and executive functions.

You’ll also hear a simple way to figure out where the breakdown is happening, plus strategies that fit right inside the curriculum you already have. These include verbal rehearsal with a writing partner, the Say It, Step It strategy from Melanie Meehan and Maggie Beattie Roberts, and a keyword sticky note that holds onto a student’s ideas while they write.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why writing is so much harder than talking, and what the Simple View of Writing tells us about it
• How to use the “say it, then write it” check to find where a student’s answer is getting lost
• What erasing, run-on sentences and answers that trail off can tell you about the breakdown
• How brief handwriting fluency practice can free up mental energy for ideas
• How a word list or speech to text can support students when spelling is the roadblock
• How verbal rehearsal and Say It, Step It help students build sentences that stand on their own
• Why working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control all play a role in writing
• How a keyword sticky note helps students hold onto their answer from start to finish

If you have a student whose great ideas never seem to make it onto the page, the good news is that the thinking is already there. Try Emily’s challenge this week: pick a few students, compare what they say with what they write, and you’ll have a clear place to start supporting them.

Resources Mentioned:

⭐ Free Sentence Writing Routine Sample: Stellarteacher.com/sentence

⭐ The Stellar Literacy Collective: Stellarteacher.com/join

⭐ Foundational Skills for Writing by Melanie Meehan and Maggie Beattie Roberts

Small group instruction can be one of the most powerful parts of your literacy block—but it can also be one of the hardest to figure out. In this episode, Sara and Emily are bringing back our Dear Stellar Teacher style episodes and sharing six small group mistakes they made in their own classrooms (and what they would do differently now!).

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why too much teacher talk can take away from the practice and feedback students really need.
• Why you don’t need to meet with every student in a small group every day (or even every week).
• How relying on one data point or fixed reading levels can keep you from identifying what students actually need.
• Why small group instruction should focus on the specific skills students need to become stronger readers, rather than simply reteaching your whole group lesson.

If small groups have ever left you wondering, Am I even doing this right?—this episode is for you. We’ve made the mistakes, learned a lot since then, and we’re sharing it all so you can feel more confident with your small group instruction.

Resources mentioned:

Small Group Success Checklist: stellarteacher.com/smallgroups

Reading Intervention Kit: stellarteacher.com/intervention

What does MTSS actually look like in your upper elementary literacy classroom? Understanding the tiers is one thing, but knowing what instruction should look like at Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 can feel much more complicated.

In this episode, Emily breaks down how to put MTSS into practice with practical examples you can use in your literacy block. You’ll learn what strong Tier 1 literacy instruction should include, how to identify the specific skills students need during Tier 2, and how Tier 3 increases the intensity of support without necessarily requiring an entirely different program.

We’ll also walk through a simple Tier 2 fluency routine and a five-day phonics and decoding intervention routine to help you see what targeted support can actually look like.

Resources Mentioned:

Free Fluency Resource: stellarteacher.com/fluency

Stellar Intervention Toolkit: stellarteacher.com/intervention

Stellar Literacy Collective: stellarteacher.com/join