INTRODUCTION
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Hi, and welcome back to the smarter literacy podcast from a sense, smarter intervention.
Where we simplify effective literacy instruction, so you can show up for your students with confidence, clarity, and way less stress.
I'm Lindsey.
And I'm Corey, and today we're diving into something that trips up even the most experienced educators.
THE CHALLENGE OF TIER 1
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How do you make the science of reading actually work in a tier one setting in that classroom setting? You've got a wide range of student needs, limited time, and what feels like a never ending to do list.
So how do you deliver effective evidence based instruction that actually works? This episode is a follow-up to our last one where we talked about identifying what tier you're teaching in and why it matters.
Today, we're zooming in on tier one instruction, the core classroom literacy block, and join you how to balance direct instruction, small group instruction, and independent practice.
Ish, it's a lot.
So let's start here.
WHY TIER 1 MATTERS
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Tier one is where most students receive the majority of their literacy instruction.
If it's strong, everything else becomes easier.
Tier two and tier three becomes supports and not rescue missions.
But when tier one is weak or inconsistent, students fall through the cracks fast and the intervention systems start to get very overwhelmed.
Exactly.
And yet tier one is also one of the hardest tiers to get right.
You're expected to teach everyone at once, including students above, on, and below grade level, all in the same time block.
We always say tier one is not easy.
It's actually the most complex tier to plan for because you're trying to meet everyone's needs with the same set of minutes.
COMPONENTS OF TIER 1
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So let's break it down into three core parts.
Tier one is whole group direct instruction, small group differentiation, and independent practice.
Let's take a look at them one at a time.
WHOLE GROUP DIRECT INSTRUCTION
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Okay.
Awesome.
So, starting with whole group direct instruction.
This is where you introduce and model skills explicitly.
It's short.
It's focused and it's systematic.
And it includes all students.
So again, this is whole group.
You're doing this with your entire class.
This is where you teach concepts like phonics, morphology, vocabulary, comprehension strategies, and so on.
The goal here is consistency and clarity, not entertainment.
You're delivering essential content ensuring every student has access to foundational skills.
This might be around fifteen to twenty minutes of direct instruction and can be broken into multiple parts of the day, like a phonics block or a comprehension block.
SMALL GROUP DIFFERENTIATION
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Yes.
Exactly.
And then you can move into your small group differentiation.
So that's the second part of your tier one instruction.
This is where you pull small groups based on data.
You wanna be careful not to just use levels here.
You really wanna think about what your data is telling you.
And these groups should be flexible and targeted addressing specific skill gaps like decoding, fluency or vocabulary, depending on what the students actually need, which again should be hopefully coming from that data that we were just talking about.
You can think about it like this.
Ho group is where you build the foundation.
Small group is where you fill in the cracks.
And these groups don't have to be long.
Even ten to fifteen minutes can be powerful if you're focused and consistent.
INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
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And then the last piece is independent practice.
Now this often gets overlooked, but it's so important to consider.
We wanna make sure that that independent practice or that independent work is directly connected to what you've already taught.
So it shouldn't just be busy work.
It should really tie back to what you did in your whole group instruction.
Exactly.
And this could be decodable or connected text reading, vocabulary journals, word mapping, or phonics games, written responses to reading using sentence stems.
Whatever you choose, it should reinforce the skills you introduced and modeled earlier.
Absolutely.
So a lot of times what we see this looking like too is if you're doing spelling lists, there might be some spelling practice there.
If you again have taught specific vocabulary words that you're gonna be working for a unit, that might be something that they can be practicing there.
You can do all types of different things.
These would be things that ideally could be done completely independently.
Now granted if students are needing a little bit of support, perhaps your groups are structured in such a way that you have a leader in each of those groups that can help to reinforce what's supposed to be done during this independent practice time.
And the other important thing to keep in mind here is this is something that you're gonna have to set these routines at the beginning of the school year so that students know this is how our independent group Works, this is what we're doing, this is what's expected to you in those times, and that will make everything feel so much easier.
So much easier.
SUMMARY OF THREE PARTS
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Okay.
So all that said, whatever you choose, you wanna make sure that you are working again in that whole group direct instruction, that small group differentiated instruction, and then you have that independent practice.
So, again, we have worked with hundreds of educators, and we see some common struggles in tier one.
So let's talk through a few of them.
COMMON STRUGGLES
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The first one, trying to differentiate everything instead of differentiating the right things.
You don't need a separate lesson for every student.
Focus on one or two key skill targets.
And rotate groups accordingly.
Absolutely.
That's so important.
I think we can feel so overwhelmed by trying to differentiate everything, especially when you hear everything about data and making sure that you're using the data to drive your instruction before long, you're starting to feel like, oh my gosh, I have to differentiate every single lesson and everything that I do.
Again, you don't need to do that at all.
No.
Teachers like to think that it's up to them to change and fix every problem in the world, it is impossible to do that.
And when we try to do the impossible, we actually don't make things better because we we just kinda burn ourselves out.
Exactly.
Exactly, especially in the tier one setting.
You have to remember that further differentiation can absolutely happen at tier two and tier three for the students who really need it.
So again, just make sure that you're keeping this sustainable for yourself so that you're not burning out.
Another one is skipping core skill work too early.
So sometimes as educators, we want to jump straight into novel studies.
We want to jump straight into the thematic units.
Sometimes I even do this.
I'm not even necessarily teaching in a tier one setting.
And I like to do this.
I wanna get into that kind of thing.
That's the love of all of this.
And if you're teaching English, that's the idea.
Right? If you're teaching literacy, you're like, I want to get them there, However, we have to make sure that we start with those foundational skills like decoding, comprehension, vocabulary.
Because if they don't have that, what we'll see is that their later reading will really suffer.
So we need to make sure that we're putting those foundational building blocks in place even if we really just wanna focus on the read aloud or the fun reading with our students.
Absolutely.
You can't drive the car if you don't put the gas in first.
Right.
And a third one, planning small group time without a purpose.
If your small groups aren't driven by assessment or skill data, they aren't gonna move the needle.
So something that we like to do is break our students into groups a, b, c, or d, where students who are in the a group, they are good to go.
They're on track.
Our b group kiddos would be working on their phonics and their PA.
The c group kids are looking at our vocabulary and comprehension, and then d group kiddos would be working on everything.
So if you can kinda figure out where your kids are in your classroom and kinda figure out, okay, who do I really need to kind of group with who? That can really help you out with your instruction.
Absolutely.
And a lot of times this can come from your universal screening data.
So a lot of your universal screening data, if you're using something like I ready, or Acadiance, or Star, or whatever it is that you might be using, hopefully is pointing you to have some of this information about are they struggling with phonics and word recognition skills, or are they struggling with more of those comprehension skills, and you can even start to look at that data to start thinking about which kids need which.
Now, again, if your kids are in kind of that green space or everything's looking good, then great.
Those are those a group students.
And so you can start to think about Again, coming back to your initial point about the differentiation and not needing to differentiate everything, those kids who are in the green space, they're in that a group, they're doing great with your instruction.
They're getting it.
Just keep going.
Don't feel like you need to differentiate there.
Mhmm.
But as you get into the kids who potentially need more of the word recognition support, great.
Try to differentiate your instruction there.
Or if you have the kids who need more of the comprehension and vocabulary support, great, differentiate there.
And that's what you can do during that small group time so that those small groups really have a purpose.
Yeah.
And you feel really good about what you're doing.
With each of those small groups.
Absolutely.
And the last one, and this is a biggie, independent work really should not be disconnected from your core instruction.
So we get it.
Right? When you are putting your small groups together, you have to work with one of those small groups, which means the other kids are left doing what? Who knows? Right? No.
No.
Not not who knows.
This should be that independent work.
And again, we wanna make sure that this is coming back to your core instruction because when kids are doing one thing, during whole group, and then something totally different in small group, and then something totally random for their independent practice, That's where learning gets muddy and inconsistent.
That's where both you and your students start to feel like things are not cohesive.
You're not exactly sure what's going on, and it just feels like, okay, we're just trying to fill up the time here, and we certainly don't want that.
No.
No.
Not at all.
EXAMPLE SCHEDULE
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Let's found this in a real example.
Let's say you're teaching second grade, your literacy block might look like this.
Fifteen minutes of whole group phonics and word study.
Twenty five minutes of small group rotations.
Let's say one group is working with a teacher while three groups are working independently on reading or vocabulary practice.
And then you have twenty minutes of whole group, shared reading, or comprehension modeling.
It really doesn't have to be fancy, but it does have to be intentional.
Absolutely.
And it also really depends on the length of your literacy block.
Right? And so you really need to think about what the length of that literacy block looks like and just make sure, like you said, that you have that whole group instruction you have that small group rotation as part of it.
And within those small groups, you also obviously have to factor in the independent skills for the students who are in the centers or working on something while you're working with your small group.
And then you can come back and tie that back for students.
We've worked with so many schools to see how they're implementing this.
And the great news is is that many of them do it differently.
Right? But what they are doing is they're figuring out what works for them
And those that are doing this so effectively do have all of those components that they're working in and that they're thinking about.
So again, the whole group, direct instruction, the small group differentiated practice, and the independent work that is cohesive.
IMPLEMENTATION TIPS
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Now, again, you wanna be incorporating decodable text.
You wanna make sure that you have flexible planning templates for yourself because things don't always go exactly the way that you had expected.
And so you wanna just use guides so that you also remember that Hey, this doesn't have to be perfect.
It just has to be relatively consistent.
So again, if you can set those models up at the beginning of this is our routine, this is what we're gonna do, this is what our independent time looks like, this is how we pull our small groups, that can make a really huge difference.
Absolutely.
And kids will always learn better when there is structure, and they can just jump right into learning themselves when you kinda set them off to do their own thing.
And one of the things that we've seen work really well is teachers who are using timers as well so that the students also know.
Hey, we're gonna be talking together for this amount of time, and then we're gonna put timers up so that you know this is how long each of those independent blocks go because if you're working with kindergartners, you might need to have a three to five minute timer of them doing independent work before they have lost all excitement about what they're doing, you need to move on.
Whereas if you're working with fourth or fifth grade students, if you're working with secondary students, Obviously, those time blocks can get longer and longer.
But you also wanna be thoughtful about how long are you expecting students to be able to work independently or on one particular task?
FINAL REFLECTION AND CLOSING
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So here's our best advice.
Don't try to do everything.
Do the right things with intention.
And if you're not sure where to start, because, again, we always like to make sure to keep things actionable.
Take ten minutes this week to map out what part of your block feels strong.
Is that your whole group instruction? Is that your small group differentiated practice? Do you feel really good about your independent work and your kind of center based activities, if you will? What does that look like? What feels strong? And then two, what needs the most clarity? So again, coming back to those three parts, do you feel like your whole group direct instruction needs the most clarity? Does your small group planning need the most clarity? Or do you just need some support around those independent activities for students to be doing.
The great news is is that you're likely doing so much of this right already.
So it's really just about figuring out, okay, if I was gonna make one small shift, which of those three core areas would be the best use of my time? And if you wanna see the structure in action or case support creating your own tier one roadmap, we're diving deep into this at the smarter intervention summit.
We'll be sharing real life examples and planning models during our elementary lesson planning session.
And we'd love to see you there.
Or if you can't make it, since it's literally right around the corner and registration closes on June 18, consider jumping into our learning lab in the five CCL resource library where we will talk more about this.
Thanks for tuning in today.
Tier one doesn't have to feel chaotic.
When your block is aligned and intentional, everything else falls into place.
So next time we're moving into tier two, how to make structured literacy work in small group intervention.
It's one of our favorite topics, and we cannot wait to share it with you.
Until then, we're cheering you on.
You've got this, and we're here to help every step of the way.
WRAP-UP
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Until next time.
Happy teaching
