Organization Hacks for Your Small Groups

Lately, we've received several questions about how we organize our small group lesson plans and materials. Today is the day that we tell (and show!) you some of our best organizational hacks for small groups!

In this blog post, we're going to walk you through both our teacher and student binders for small group reading lessons. Let's start with our teacher binder!

Teacher Binder

I like to use one, big binder to house all of the lessons plans and materials for my small groups. Over the years, I've tried having separate binders for each group, but I've found that keeping everything in one place is super helpful (especially when I want to grab my binder and take it home to plan!)

I made this cute cover for my small group binder, and if you'd like to download a copy for free, just click HERE! (I've also included labels for card deck boxes, which I'll explain later in this post!)

Inside the binder, I use these pocket dividers for each group and label the group numbers (1-6) on the tabs. There is a pocket on the front and a pocket on the back of each divider. This is where I keep all of the materials that I'm going to need for each lesson. In the front pocket, I put any cards that the group will need, including concept cards, grapheme/phoneme cards, morpheme cards, etc. 

Group #1 is still working on letters & sounds, so I put the next letter card that they will be learning in the front pocket. This way, I have it available to add to the group's ring of learned letters/sounds after I've introduced it.

In the back of the pocket, I keep all of the other materials that I will need to teach the new concept, along with the students' printed materials. Since Group #1 is learning about the letter P, I have picture cards for introducing the new letter & sound, letter formation practice strips, and a letter P foldable for each of the students. 

Behind the divider, I keep all of the group's lesson plans in order from most recent on top to oldest at the back. The lesson seen in the picture is how I introduce a new letter to my students. On the lesson plan, I jot down notes about how things went or where we had to stop for the next lesson.

My second group is working on CVC words with the short A sound, so let me show you what their materials look like! In the front pocket, I have a concept card for the closed syllable. After I introduce this concept, I will add this card to Group #2's concept card ring (more info about how I organize all of the card rings later!)

Again, in the back pocket, I keep all of the materials and student printables that we'll need for the lesson. This includes a word list, encoding page, and decodable reader for each student.

Behind the divider is a lesson plan for the CVC, short A concept. This lesson plan looks a little different from the letter & sound lesson plan. It includes all of the steps from review at the beginning of the lesson to the decodable reader and writing at the end.

*Note- The back pocket is also where I keep any game boards, fluency practice sheets, etc. that we may need as well.

Okay, now that we've had a tour of my teacher binder, let's move onto what my student binders look like!

Student Binders

In the front of every student's binder is a pencil pouch. This is a lifesaver for keeping all of their materials handy! Inside each student's pencil pouch, there is a pencil, gel pen, highlighter, dice, counters/chips, and a timer (for fluency practice). At the end of the lesson, everything gets put back into the pencil pouch so it's ready for the next lesson.

Each student knows they are responsible for taking care of their own materials, so using this system helps them to take care of their things!

Behind the pencil pouch is a color coded table of contents. This helps students find the sections they need quickly. Each color coordinates with a colored sheet of cardstock. Then, I used the little post-it tabs as dividers. This way, I can just say "Go to your yellow tab" for fluency and they can find it really easily. Also, using colored cardstock and the tabs is a LOT cheaper than buying dividers for every student binder! 🙌🏻

The first section in the student binder is where they keep their word lists. After I've passed one out to each student from my binder (I already have them hole-punched), they turn to this section and add it to their binders. Then, they use a fun gel pen to code and read the words at the top, scoop the phrases in the middle, and practice reading the sentences at the bottom. If they finish reading the entire page, they color in a smiley face at the bottom and do it all again (x2)!

If a student finishes their word list 3x through and still has extra time, they can flip to the next word list (from the previous lesson) and practice rereading. It's nice because everything is in one place, so it's really easy for them to review previous content if they finish early.

The next section of the student binder is where students keep their encoding pages. This is the encoding page that we use to practice spelling sounds, words, and writing a dictated sentence. I like to keep about 10 blank copies of the encoding page in this section, since we use the same page for each new concept.

The third section of the student binder is where we keep any fluency activities. Here is an example of a roll-and-read activity that I used with my group working on the CVC A pattern. Sometimes we'll do timed reads, rapid recognition charts, sentence strips, or other fluency practice, so this is the section that all of that gets saved.

The fourth section of the student binder is where students keep their decodable readers from each lesson. By the end of the year, this section is FULL! I take all of the decodable readers and send them home with my students to reread for review over the summer.

I put a clear sheet protector in this section to hold any decodable readers that are folded or stapled. If it's a passage on regular sized paper, it just gets hole punched and added behind the sheet protector. Keeping all of their decodable readers in one section is also great for review. On Fridays, I like to do "Flashlight Friday" where students grab their binder and a flashlight and reread the books in this section with the lights out! It's so much fun and the kids love it!

The last section of their binder is for games. Now, I don't have them keep every game we play in here, but if it's a really simple game, like this print-and-go Race to the Gold game, I'll print a copy for each student and have them put it in their binder. This way, they can play the games again when they have extra time. And because there is a dice and counters/chips in every pencil pouch, they have everything they need at their fingertips!

Card Deck Organization

Along with keeping each group's lesson plans and materials organized in my teacher binder, I also like to keep each group's card decks organized. Each group typically has a concept card deck (of concepts that have been explicitly taught) and a grapheme/phoneme card deck (of the letter and sound patterns they've been explicitly taught). Concept cards includes concepts like a closed syllable, silent e syllable, syllable division rules, schwa, etc. Grapheme/phoneme cards include graphemes like vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, etc. We review each group's learned cards before starting a new lesson.

One way to keep each group's card decks organized is by using these plastic photo containers. The ones I use are 4"x6" but they also make them in larger sizes such as 5"x7". You can find them in craft stores like Hobby Lobby, Michaels, or online at Amazon. They are the perfect size for storing your card rings!

Grapheme/phoneme cards are kept on one ring, and concept cards are on another. Before every new lesson, I hold up each card and have them tell me the sound or explain the concept. This is a great way to review previously learned patterns before introducing a new one.

If you'd like to download a free set of the labels that I use on my card deck boxes, click on the image below! You'll get a small group binder cover and matching card deck labels. Enjoy!

I hope this blog post was helpful and gives you a few ideas for organizing your small group materials! If you are interested in any of the student materials pictured above, I invite you to check out our teacher membership, Launching Literacy, where you can get instant access to our lesson plans, word lists, encoding pages, decodable readers, games, and MUCH more! To learn more about the membership and everything that's included, click the logo below. We'd love to have you join us!