How I Teach Foundational Skills ~ Ep. 152

Teaching Foundational Skills in Kindergarten: What Small Group Instruction Looks Like

Teaching foundational skills in kindergarten doesn’t mean every student has to sit at your small group table and complete the same activity. Small groups can be flexible, targeted, and focused on exactly what your students need. The goal is to meet students where they are, give them meaningful practice, and move them forward from there.

Small group instruction also doesn’t have to make your planning harder. In fact, repeating activities, keeping a consistent structure, and changing the skill instead of constantly changing the activity can make small groups more effective for students and more manageable for you. You can work smarter, not harder, while still giving students the targeted literacy and math practice they need.

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When to Start Small Groups in Kindergarten

Before thinking about what to teach in small groups, think about whether the rest of your class is ready for you to pull one. Students need to be independent at whatever you’re asking them to do while you’re working with a group. If they’re not ready to work independently, you’ll spend your small group time managing the rest of the class instead of focusing on the students in front of you.

Rest time may be one of the earliest opportunities to begin small groups because students can learn to be independent during that part of the day. Once students are successfully resting, coloring in a rest journal, looking at books, or participating in another quiet activity, you can use a few minutes for targeted instruction. During literacy centers, however, you may need to wait much longer before pulling formal groups.

There’s no reason to rush into small groups just because you think you’re supposed to have them. Wait until students are solid and independent with the routines you’ve established. Depending on your class and the support available to you, that may not happen until later in the fall, and that’s okay.

Small Groups Don’t Have to Look Like Traditional Small Groups

You can still provide extra support even when your class isn’t ready for traditional small group instruction. Sit beside students while they’re completing the same activity as the rest of the class and provide additional help. You can also give a student something different to work on one-on-one if they need practice with an earlier foundational skill.

Another option is to intentionally group students who need similar support during centers. When that group reaches a particular center, sit with them and add a quick foundational skill activity before helping them with the center itself. This allows you to provide targeted support without expecting the rest of the class to be completely independent before they’re ready.

Small group instruction in kindergarten can be flexible. It might mean students coming to your table, but it could also mean you joining them at a center, providing a quick warm-up, or sitting beside a child during whole-group work. What matters is that you’re giving students practice with the skills they actually need.

What Literacy Small Groups Can Look Like

When you are ready to pull a literacy small group, start with a warm-up or review. Flashcards can be an easy way to practice letters you’ve already taught during whole-group instruction. You’re not introducing brand-new letters in this group, but giving students another opportunity to practice the letters and sounds they’ve already learned.

From there, add hands-on practice whenever possible, especially for students who need extra exposure. Students can write letters in sand, build them with play dough or Wikki Stix, jump to letters, or hit the correct letter with a fly swatter. Adding movement and hands-on materials gives students another way to interact with the skill.

Make sure you’re also including letter sound practice and games whenever you can. You want students to get the repetition they need, but that practice can still be fun and engaging. A simple, predictable routine can give you a structure to follow without turning every small group into a completely new lesson you have to plan.

Keep Your Literacy Groups Flexible

The students in a small group shouldn’t necessarily stay together for the rest of the year. If a child starts progressing and no longer needs that level of support, they don’t need to remain in the group simply because that’s where you originally placed them. Likewise, if another student begins needing more practice with that skill, you can add them.

Flexible groups allow you to respond to the students who are actually in front of you. Keep observing how students respond to your instruction and change the groups when their needs change. The purpose of a group is to target a skill, not to create a permanent label for a student.

Start Math Small Groups With Observation

Math small groups should also begin with what students can already do. Observe students carefully, identify the missing skill, and then target instruction just beyond their current level. You want to meet students where they are and help them take the next step instead of jumping ahead to where the curriculum says they should be.

For example, maybe a student can successfully count to 10 but struggles to count to 15. Instead of immediately expecting them to work successfully with 15 objects, give them groups of 11, 12, or 13 objects to count. You’re starting with what they can do and gradually increasing the challenge as they become successful.

As students progress, continue adjusting the amount they’re working with. Once counting to 12 becomes successful, you can add more objects and work toward 14, then 15 or 16. Your observations should determine what comes next.

Repeat Small Group Activities

One of the most important things to remember when teaching foundational skills in kindergarten is that you don’t need a completely different activity every day. Repetition is valuable, especially for students who need extra support. Repeating an activity also means students already understand the directions, so your small group time can focus on practicing the actual skill.

It can be tempting to plan something new every time because you think students will get bored. But when you’re constantly introducing new activities, you may spend a large part of your small group explaining directions instead of working on the missing skill. Students who need additional support often benefit from the predictability of doing something familiar.

You can keep the activity the same while changing the materials or increasing the difficulty. If students are practicing counting, give them different objects to count while keeping the task itself familiar. As their skills improve, increase the number of objects without having to teach an entirely new activity.

Use the Same Games With Different Skills

The same idea applies to literacy games. If you have a game students already know and enjoy, you don’t need to replace it just because you’re working on a new letter or phonics skill. Keep the game and change the content.

A familiar game could first be used to practice letters you’ve taught and then later be used for rhyming or beginning sounds. Students already understand how to play, which allows them to put their attention on the new skill. You also save yourself from having to plan, prep, and explain a brand-new game every time.

This is one of the easiest ways to work smarter, not harder with small group instruction. Teach the directions once and then use that structure again with different skills. The repetition is efficient for you and beneficial for your students.

Not Every Student Needs the Same Thing

Students aren’t all going to need the same type or amount of support. That’s why observation needs to remain a major part of your small group instruction. Pay attention to how students respond to different activities, materials, and ways of practicing a skill.

If something isn’t helping a student progress, try a different approach and see how they respond. If a student is progressing quickly, move them forward instead of continuing to give them practice they no longer need. Your groups, activities, and supports should change based on what you’re observing.

Most importantly, meet students where they are, not where the curriculum says they should be or where you wish they were. Start with what they can already do and think about the progression of learning that comes next. That’s the skill you want to target.

What About Whole-Group Instruction?

During whole-group literacy and math instruction, you may need to follow the curriculum provided by your school. That doesn’t mean every student will automatically be ready for everything the curriculum asks them to do. This is where differentiation, accommodations, hands-on materials, and your knowledge of your students become important.

You can sit beside a student who needs additional support or give them concrete materials to help them understand the lesson. You can adjust what they’re doing while still keeping them connected to the whole-group instruction. You’re using your professional knowledge of how children learn along with your observations of the actual students in your classroom.

Small groups then give you another opportunity to target foundational skills when the whole-group curriculum has already moved forward. A student may need more practice with a skill that isn’t currently the focus of your curriculum. Small group time allows you to keep working on that missing foundation.

Focus on the Skill, Not the Small Group Format

Small groups don’t have to follow one specific format to be effective. You don’t always need students sitting around your table, completing the same activity, and reading the same book. You need a way to give students targeted practice with the skill they need.

Sometimes that means pulling a traditional small group. Other times it means sitting with students at a center, joining them during an activity, or working with a child individually while the rest of the class is engaged. Be flexible with what small group instruction looks like so you can make it work for your classroom.

Keep Foundational Skills at the Center

Teaching foundational skills in kindergarten comes back to observing students, meeting them where they are, and providing consistent practice. Keep your groups flexible, use hands-on learning, and don’t be afraid to repeat activities that work. Familiar routines allow students to focus on learning instead of constantly figuring out new directions.

You also don’t need to reinvent your small groups every week. Use the literacy, math, or kindergarten bundles mentioned in this episode when you need activities and games that can be repeated with different skills. Find structures that work, change the skill as students progress, and keep your instruction focused on the foundational skills your students actually need.

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