Podcast delves into the challenges of small-group instruction in literacy, with insights from Jamey Peavler. Topics include misconceptions, mastery stages in education, benefits of overlearning, Anita Archer's teachings, and prioritizing targeted instruction for academic progress.
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insights INSIGHT
Mastery Is Multi-Stage
Mastery has four stages: acquisition, fluency, generalization, and adaptation.
Many assessments stop at fluency, so students often fail later when generalization or adaptation hasn't been achieved.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Assess Mastery In Real Contexts
Assess adaptation by observing students using skills in real writing or connected tasks.
Use those real-context observations as actionable data to guide instruction.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Use Small Groups To Close Stage Gaps
Pull students into small groups when they haven't acquired the skill; whole-group can move to generalization.
Aim small-group sessions at the specific stage gap and plan brief, intense sessions a few times weekly.
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This season is all about tackling the hard stuff, and there is no harder pill to swallow than being told by a student that you don't know how to teach reading—especially when you realize they're right! After this happened to Jamey Peavler, Co-Director in the Reading Science Graduate Program at Mount St. Joseph University, she leaned in and took the opportunity to completely rethink her approach to literacy instruction. Now, her research focuses on maximizing small-group instruction. In this episode, she'll share her findings and her advice, as well as some best practices for small-group instruction and balancing small- and whole-group work.
“We have this mindset of that small-group differentiated golden standard, but there's a certain amount of instruction, again, [that] all kids need and there isn't a lot of difference between those things.” —Jamey Peavler
“There's a certain amount of proactive, preventative foundation-building work that should be done for all kids. We can do that more efficiently in a whole-group setting and then reserve that small-group setting for what truly needs to be differentiated, because not everything has to be differentiated.” —Jamey Peavler
“If we can set aside the idea of introducing a new program, and instead focus our core instruction on how that language and how those routines could actually be intensified in that small-group setting, we're going to minimize that cognitive overload.” —Jamey Peavler
“What we know about overlearning is when you get that fluency down and that generalization down, you are more likely to accurately reach adaptation sooner. So it's not causing harm for the kids who have already learned that skill.” —Jamey Peavler
“When you mess up, it's okay. Just mess up again tomorrow in a different way.” —Jamey Peavler
Science of Reading: The Podcast