Avery Cornatzer

IMB Small Group Activity

Subject Area

The area of focus for this small group instruction was poetry and reading comprehension.

The students in this small group were in need of a refresher on poetry, what a stanza is, etc. while

also gaining skills in reading comprehension as their benchmark tests approached in the

following week. During this small group, students were shown how to check the questions in an

assessment, read a text, review what a stanza and line in a poem, and understand how to use the

pictures given to interpret the text. The teacher allows students time to pre-read the questions and

lets students know that pre-reading will help them find the answers within the text. After the

students have pre-read the questions, they then read the text. The teacher reads the poem aloud to

the students. After reading, the teacher walks the students through the first 4 of 8 questions and

how to approach them. The students then try the last 4 questions independently while the teacher

allows the opportunity for students to ask questions. The classroom environment towards the

upcoming benchmark test was very hostile. The purpose of this small group instruction was to

ease the tension and make students feel more comfortable with an assessment such as this one.

The students in the small group were all struggling readers. These students were some of the

most nervous for the benchmark test.

Materials

The student resource needed is the text and questions. The teacher will also need the text

with questions, along with a key and notes of questions to be sure to ask students. See the

example text below for the assessment each student received.

Avery Cornatzer

Intended Outcomes

The intended outcome of this small group intervention was to review poetry knowledge,

reading comprehension, and improve the likelihood of a better score on the benchmark test. The

hope is that the ideas of stanzas as groups of lines in a poem and a line being a one-lined portion

of a stanza will click in the students’ minds. Another hope is that reading comprehension skills

are reviewed and the students will be able to pre-read questions and read a text appropriately to

find the answer.

Reflection

This small group intervention was a well timed one. I believe that this intervention was

useful for those students that need additional support when preparing for a nerve-wracking text.

After reviewing the results from the assessment, students missed no more than 3 questions of 8.

While this could be counted as low percentage-wise, my cooperating teacher suggested that this

was a great step for the students because it is much better than previous small group

interventions they had had. This makes the intervention a success! If the students continue to

practice these skills, they will continue to progress! There were also some students that missed

no problems, which was another huge success, noting that the group was comprised of struggling

readers. If I could change anything about this small group activity, it would be that I would

preface more on Maya Angelou (the author of the poem) by showing pictures and giving a brief

background of her history. This would integrate social studies into this small group! Overall, the

goals of this reflection were reached. I am pleased with the way this lesson turned out!
Avery Cornatzer

Materials (Continued)
Avery Cornatzer
Avery Cornatzer