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The Superkids Bulletin. Fun and Creative Inspiration for Teachers of The Superkids Reading Program | Zaner-Bloser

ISSUE 46 | January 2024

We hope 2024 is off to a SUPER start for you and your students! This time of the school year is a great time to concentrate on small-group instruction, as your students’ strengths and weaknesses have likely changed since the beginning of the year. You may be considering reorganizing your group members. Perhaps you are thinking about new ways to scaffold your reading instruction. It could be time to add some new activities to your independent work time stations. If any of these apply, this is the issue for you!

Psst! Break out the crayons and sharpen those colored pencils for this month’s freebie!

In The Superkids Reading Program, reading lessons are done in small groups comprised of students with similar reading abilities. Investing time in assessing children’s skills regularly will reveal their strengths and weaknesses and help you make decisions about grouping children for reading instruction.

Use the formal assessments that accompany Superkids to provide data about students’ skills throughout the year. Observing children during lessons and reviewing their completed work are also effective ways to assess individual strengths and weaknesses. Try these opportunities for informal assessment during your reading block:

Performance during Daily Routines
Completed Word Work activities
Completed Practice Pages
Children’s oral reading and discussion during guided reading lessons
Completed writing assignments
Performance during Ten-Minute Tuck-In activities
Products from Independent Activities

Once you have collected data and notes from assessment opportunities, you can begin creating small reading groups comprised of children with similar strengths and weaknesses. How you guide reading with Superkids text should vary depending on the abilities and instructional needs of the children in each group. Important to note: student grouping should be flexible based on ongoing assessments and shifting mastery levels.

Here are some helpful ways to think about how students can be grouped and examples of how instruction can be scaffolded for each group.

Group 1: Needs help all the time

These students need significant help with independent reading and require the most teacher support. This is an example of how reading instruction can be differentiated for this group:

Orally read the text aloud to the group.
Ask comprehension questions.
Select a small section of text.
Provide instruction and practice with difficult words and irregular words from that section.
Have the group follow as you read one or two sentences from the section, followed by chorally reading those sentences with you.
Call on individuals to read sentences, providing decoding assistance as needed.

Group 2: Needs help some of the time

This group includes readers who are considered “on-level.” Most tasks can be completed with little teacher assistance. When new skills are introduced, children in this group may need more help. This is an example of how reading instruction can be differentiated for this group:

Have children take turns reading a sentence, paragraph, or page aloud. Assist with decoding as needed.
Read the text aloud to the group before discussing it so children can hear the sentences read fluently without the stops and starts of different readers.
Ask the comprehension questions from the section of text that was read.
Continue with the next section of text.

Group 3: Can do most tasks independently

These students are independent readers and can complete most tasks without help. This is an example of how reading instruction can be differentiated for this group:

Allow children to read text independently before meeting with you in the group.
During group time, have children take turns reading a sentence, paragraph, or page aloud.
Encourage children to read smoothly and with expression, modeling as needed.
Pause after each page to discuss comprehension questions.

Use this Small-Group Planning Template to think through how you will differentiate instruction for each reading group.

Once you have formed your groups, you need to create a plan for what the other students will be working on while you conduct your reading-group lessons.

First-grade teacher Christa Kelly from Cresaptown Elementary School in Cresaptown, Maryland, has her independent work time running like a well-oiled machine. She has created stations based on the Superkids Independent Work Station Signs. During our 2023 Superkids Schools Conference, she shared the types of activities she uses in each station. Here are a few fabulous examples.

Alphabet with Alf

This station focuses on letter recognition. Activities can include letter matching, letter sorting, or Alphabet Concentration.

Games with Golly

This fun station incorporates games like Word Bingo, Word Concentration, or Go Fish using word cards.

Read Together with Tic, Tac, and Toc

Christa has created six “Read Together with Tic, Tac, and Toc” binders for this station. When a new fluency passage is introduced, copies of the passage are placed in plastic sleeves and added to the binders. Children are asked to reread the passages with a partner.

Handwriting with Hot Rod

This activity uses the Superkids Coloring Pages and Superkids Letter Template. Christa asks her students to color a scene and then write to a Superkid about what happened in the picture they colored.

Fishing with Frits

At this station, students fish for memory words or decodable words printed on paper fish shapes. Students catch a fish and write the word on a white board or piece of paper. Students read the words to their group members when done and then release the fish back into the pond.

Comprehension with Cass

After reading text in their groups, children orally answer questions about the text with partners, complete Practice Pages that correspond to the text, correctly sequence story events, or complete graphic organizers from the Superkids Skill-Building Book.

Building with Doc

At this word-building station, Christa’s students use “Lit Kits” that are housed in their own zipper bag. The bags include laminated sound boxes, a dry erase marker, an eraser, a magnetic wand, and magnetic plastic chips.

Spelling with Sal

Students use the printed spelling word lists from the portal to complete spelling games like Roll a Word. Spelling Practice Pages are also a great resource for spelling station tasks.

Teachers really enjoyed the original Superkids coloring pages we created last school year, so we have created more! Enjoy eleven new printable coloring pages featuring the Superkids! These pages can be offered to the students who finish their work early, provided as a free-choice activity during indoor recess, or can be used with a writing activity as described above in the Handwriting with Hot Rod station.