[Listen Again] Maximizing Small-Group Reading Instruction

Episode 143 

This conversation remains one of our most downloaded episodes and for good reason.

As we focus this month on small-group instruction, we’re revisiting this important discussion with a team of authors who published the article Maximizing Small-Group Reading Instruction.

In this episode, we explore:
 • Why small-group reading instruction has been so widely adopted
 • What the research actually says about its effectiveness
 • Common misconceptions about small-group time
 • What makes small-group instruction purposeful and impactful

If you’re rethinking how small-group time fits within strong Tier 1 instruction, or wondering how to make those minutes count, this episode offers research-informed clarity.

Resources

• Maximizing Small-Group Reading Instruction 
• Dr. Neena Saha’s Reading Research Recap of this research 
• What Should Small Group Instruction Look Like? Tim Shanahan 
• Reinterpreting the development of reading skills Scott Paris 
• Applying New Visions of Reading Development in Today's Classrooms Kay Stahl 
• Text Project with Freddy Hiebert 
• Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Our Children’s Learning by Peter Johnston

 
We answer your questions about teaching reading in The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night.

Grab free resources and episode alerts! Sign up for our email list at literacypodcast.com.

Join our community on Facebook, and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

Transcript

Meet The Guests And Topic

Melissa 0:00

You're listening to Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. Today we'll be talking to the authors of a recent article from the Reading Teacher titled Maximizing Small Group Reading Instruction. They ask and answer important questions about small group instruction, such as, what does the research say about the effectiveness of small group instruction? What are the benefits and drawbacks? And what are the best ways that teachers can use this instructional practice? Let's learn more from the authors now.

Lori 0:34

Welcome, teacher friend. I'm Lori. And I'm Melissa. We are two literacy educators in Baltimore. We want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa 0:44

Our district recently adopted a new literacy curriculum, which meant a lot of change for everyone. Lori and I can't wait to keep learning about literacy with you today.

Why Small Groups Became So Popular

Lori 0:58

Hi everyone, welcome to Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. Today, we can't wait to talk about small group instructional time with the authors of a recent article titled Maximizing Small Group Reading Instructional Time. They'll help us rethink this time by sharing research and practical applications.

Melissa 1:17

Yeah, we are so excited to have three experts with us today, which is really exciting. We're very lucky. Yeah. So we have Kristen Conrady Smith, who is a professor at the William and Mary School of Education, Steve Amendum, who's a professor at the University of Delaware School of Education, and Tamara Williams, who is a reading specialist from Williamsburg, Virginia. So welcome everybody. It's a full group today. Thank you. Thank you.

Steve Ammendum 1:44

Thanks.

Lori 1:45

Yeah, we're so glad you're here. And I I feel like I just want to start off by saying Steve University of Delaware was one of my top choices when I was applying for college.

Steve Ammendum 1:59

Still a great choice, too. Still a great choice.

Lori 2:02

So I'm curious. Um let's start by kind of kicking off with what made you all want to write this article? It's it's such an important topic, but I'd love to hear from you.

Kristin Conradi Smith 2:14

I guess I'll get us going on that. Before going to Delaware and William Mary, Steve and I were teachers. We um are teachers at heart, and Tammy is obviously still in schools. And um I think a chief responsibility of my job is to consume research and obviously conduct research, but but really make sense of that for teachers. And so um it's a confusing time to be a teacher right now. There's a lot of talk of some shifts in practice, and so what really um was the impetus for this article is we wanted to make sense of the research and translate it in a very kind of simple way for teachers.

Steve Ammendum 2:52

And I would just add to that that um we know that small groups are still happening across the country. And so to add to what Kristen said, I think what we want to do is help in any way that we can teachers to understand how those small groups may be able to shift and really support their students, especially relative to recent research and findings that we have.

Tamara Williams 3:16

And then I'll just say that, you know, with being boots on the ground, it was really um great for me to kind of work with Steve and Kristen to kind of bring that perspective of, okay, what are teachers doing and and and um how are we going through all of these shifts and and and what knowledge do we need in order to kind of make those shifts.

Melissa 3:36

Yeah, we love this so much. And we we try and do a lot of the same things, which is you know, talk to teachers who are really in there doing the work, but then also talk to, you know, we're we're all we hear is the science of reading. So we also want to hear what does the research actually say? And that's sometimes hard to get to teachers. So we also that's why we we are so glad to talk to you all today to tell us like what does the research actually say. But before we get there, we wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, we know small group instruction has been really popular, especially in literacy classrooms, especially in the K2 classrooms. And so we want to talk first about, you know, it there's a reason it has been, right? We don't want teachers to feel like, why do why would you do this thing? That, you know, it's of course there are reasons why small group instruction has been popular and has been something that is a part of the daily literacy block in many cases. So can you all talk about that? It's just why has small group reading instruction been such a popular practice?

Kristin Conradi Smith 4:34

Sure, I'll kick us off. I mean, many of us remember small groups from when we were going through school. Um, back in the day, there were like the eagles and the robins and the crows, and so we we remember that kind of um instruction. And I think small groups are just naturally appealing. Um, we have kids with varying um strengths and areas of need in our classroom, and small groups allow us to feel like we're addressing those needs. Um I have 25 kids, I can suddenly have five at a table and I'm able to kind of work with them on what they need. And I'd also say that small groups allow us to see kids in action in a way that's untenable with 25 kids just in a whole class setting. So if we go back to kind of that kidney-shaped table, when I have kids, just five in front of me, I'm able to prompt them, I'm able to give them feedback in ways, and I'm really able to kind of hear them read. Where when I have, I don't want to call it a zoo, but when I have 25 students kind of moving around the classroom, it's harder to um address those needs. So that that's kind of I think the the real appeal, at least um on my end.

The Guided Reading Legacy And Workload

Lori 5:46

Yeah, that resonates so much with me, Kristen, as a former second grade teacher. I I just I loved, I felt like I just had like my babies closer to me, you know, and I could meet their needs. It felt really good. Um and I I also want to just say, like, when I was reflecting on this in preparation, felt like it was something you just did. Like, I don't necessarily know why. You know, I it was more of a feeling thing, maybe, maybe, and something that my colleagues did. And as I did student teaching, I saw. So I just wanted to name that too. Like it just felt very appealing from a feel-good place. I didn't know at all the research behind it, like any anything that would make it more effective, less effective. Nada. I just, it was a practice that had just been happening and I had seen it in student teaching. I did it in my classroom, and I just kept doing it. So I I just wanted to add to that, um, like from a real practical teacher perspective. And I'm sure Steven, Tamara, you'll you'll add too. And Tamara, you'll probably get that uh as a reading specialist, yeah, you probably are doing a lot of small groups.

Tamara Williams 6:56

Exactly. And I I just you you basically nailed it on the head of what I wanted to say too, is that I just felt that um that was the way you taught reading. Like you, that well, there was no other way. And if you were you wanted to be a good teacher, then you had to have small groups and very similar. It wasn't because I knew why, um, it's just that was the way you know we were we were told to do it. And um and so we did it.

Steve Ammendum 7:25

Yeah, Lori, I I think you really uh I agree with Tamara, you hit it the nail on the head there because it was just the way things were done. And I think for many teachers, and and I know for me when I started, like you feel good because you hear a lot of times, well, all kids are different, and you have to figure out what works for each child in your classroom. And small groups really gave you a way to give more individualized attention to students. But I think what we've learned over the, at least since I started teaching for sure, um, is that yes, students are different and they come with different backgrounds and so on, but we also know that children go through a very predictable developmental progression as they learn to read. And so it's not that you have to figure out just what works for each child. We actually have to figure out how to help students enter that progression and then move through that developmental progression. So yeah, I agree with everything that everyone said there, but it it just felt good and as the way that you did things when you taught reading.

Kristin Conradi Smith 8:30

Can I also add, Lori, because when you when you talked about your experience, it made me think about the fact that when I was a new teacher, doing small groups well was the hallmark of the good teacher, right? Because it really, the teachers who had it down, like management was working out well in the classroom, kids were busy, and it just seemed like the the goal of teaching. Um, and so I just wanted to add that because it just kind of brought me back 20, 25 years ago when I was first starting off, and it was definitely the thing that it was something I I knew I wasn't that good at, but it was my goal.

Lori 9:05

Same. Yeah, and I'm so glad that you said that. And I think that that's why when um y'all were talking, I jotted a note that said like kind of this like martyr-like syndrome almost, I felt like it was like more is more. And uh, I remember thinking, I I when I had taught primary grades at that point, I had come from teaching high school. Um, because I had taught in high school and I was like, why can't the kids read? I'm gonna go back and teach primary. I'm like, what the heck is happening? Um and it was actually the opposite of what we did in high school, right? High school, you're whole group most of the day, and then you're pulling students here and there. And it felt like the approach of like working smarter, not harder, wasn't necessarily aligning with that small group instruction that I was doing. And I felt like I was working harder than I was working smarter. And there was what what I think resonated with me about your article is that that statement that you wrote about it being expensive, or that whole section that you wrote about it being expensive. I felt like I was spending a lot of time. And if we're thinking about expenditures as right resources, our time, um, that it felt like it was so much time I was preparing and every day, every week. Um, so that really resonated with me. And I know that we'll get there in a moment, but the other um thing I do I think it might be important to mention right here, and I'd love to hear from you all, is the idea of small group instruction, I think uh became like more appealing because of maybe Phantas and Panel. And I just wanted to make sure that we talked about that up front. Would anyone like to comment on that or or share? Or I mean, I could keep going, but I will not. You're the experts.

What Research Actually Supports

Steve Ammendum 10:56

Well, I I think that's that's true for sure, Lori. And I was thinking back as Kristen was talking just a minute ago, too, to when I began teaching. And we didn't have curriculum in the same way that you know many places have curriculum now. I was handed the first edition of Fantas and Pennell's guided reading book, and that was the curriculum, right? And so your point about working smarter and not harder, like the work to basically where we expected teachers to create curriculum as well as implement and deliver it with through small group instruction is the majority of the literacy instruction time. And I, you know, I agree with you a hundred percent that that model, the Fontus and Panel model, permeated education in many ways, so that what we were asking teachers to do in many ways, we've learned, you know, more recently that it doesn't necessarily align with the research evidence, but also we just were expecting what I view as um just really incredible time and effort from teachers that really um wasn't fair in many ways to teachers, I think.

Kristin Conradi Smith 12:12

But it definitely, so I was in, I was learning to be a teacher in the late 90s, and I think 96 and 99 are when um Founders of Panel's work first came out. Um it became initials, like people just started talking about I'm gonna FP it in my classroom. Like it was sort of it was pervasive and everyone was doing it. And I think um, though I hadn't been trained in it, there was definitely this pressure to to implement it in the classroom and to learn about this text leveling thing that was entirely foreign to me. And in some ways, um I bought into it. I didn't, I was a teacher. It wasn't like this is also like pre-internet being like everywhere, but like I bought into the idea of doing it, and then in some ways, as as taxing as creating small groups was, there was this one part that felt freeing, and that was this idea that oh, I just have to figure out what level they are, and then I just have to find a book at that level. And then, okay, I can kind of do the same thing with each of my groups, but just with a different book. So, and I know we'll kind of get at the expense of it all, but it was it's so taxing on our resources. It was so much to sort of think about, okay, I've got 25 students. I actually never had 25, I had like 20 students, but I've got to create these four groups, and at least I can do the same thing. I just need different books. Like I could kind of trust this one part of it. And I a hundred percent just trusted it. I never questioned it. And then it wasn't until about 12 or 13 years ago that that I really um started questioning it.

Lori 13:50

So you all came here to talk about what you found in this article that you wrote, and you dug into a ton of research. And I think we've set the stage really nicely, right? I mean, we know small group is a time of day that still happens in many classrooms. And we just want to make sure it's as um impactful on our students as possible. Like, how do we maximize this time? So I would love to hear from you all. Like, what does the research say? What did what did you find as your big findings?

Target One Skill, Not Everything

Kristin Conradi Smith 14:23

I'll start, but then Tammy and Steve, just feel free to jump in. So, and in trying to be faithful to the research, I want to be clear about one thing. I have never seen a study that kind of an experimental study that compared schools that did small group reading versus schools that didn't to show sort of the effects. So I'm not aware of studies that did that, but um we have a lot of descriptive research to show that small group reading is definitely still happening. Um, by and large, um I think it's two-thirds of teachers report doing it at least three times a week. So a lot of teachers are doing small group reading, but we there are so many things we don't know. But here's here's what, from my understanding of research, what we do know. We know that um differentiation in literacy does work. We know that kind of being able to target specific needs of students and providing them support in those targeted needs, that that that works. So that's something that we've got pretty robust literature on. Um, we also um know that intervention groups work. So when again, we target specific needs for students, we know that works. Um I think the research, like Holland Burns did a meta-analysis a few years ago, and they were able to show that it's more effective when we do intervention groups if we're targeting a single need rather than trying to kind of do all of literacy all at once in small groups. And I think that's counter to what a lot of us do. Um, but but in general, that's sort of my understanding of research.

Lori 15:54

Kristen, that's what I was gonna ask. Could you give a quick example? Like if I'm a teacher listening and I'm hearing you say, target the specific needs of students or um intervention groups work, but we want to be specific. Can you give us an example of that just so we're all real clear?

Kristin Conradi Smith 16:12

Yeah, sure. So say when I was teaching second grade, I had, you know, a battery of assessments done, and I kind of looked at my students. And if I realized that I've got about six who are still really struggling with decoding multisyllabic words, then that's my target. Those students really are doing pretty well with single syllable words, but they're struggling with multi-syllabic words. I would bring them into a group and that's what we'd focus on. Um, Sharon Walpole has a great term for it. She says it's unbalanced literacy, right? I'm not trying to balance all the components. Instead, I'm saying, hey, this is what this group of kids needs, and I'm going to support it.

Melissa 16:54

And just to be clear, Kristen, that's different from what you talked about earlier, because in the other way of thinking, you're thinking, okay, every student needs to be in a small group, right? No matter what, everyone gets in a small group. I just have to decide what level they're at. So I see which group they are in. And then even when they're in those groups, they're not necessarily targeting a specific skill like you just mentioned, but it's the book that they get, and it could be anything that you're doing with that book. Is that does that sum it up?

Kristin Conradi Smith 17:25

I think that does. I think what I've seen in a lot of classrooms is small group reading instruction, which in some classrooms is taking up two hours of the day between my four groups or whatever, and and transitions. But I've seen teachers kind of go, okay, well, what are the five pillars? We're gonna do word study for 10 of the minutes in our small group. Then we're gonna do something related to fluency and we're definitely gonna hit comprehension. And some even try to throw in writing too, and it it becomes um untenable. It's really, really difficult to do.

Melissa 17:56

Steve Ritmara, do you want to add anything on?

Letting Go Of Rotations For All

Steve Ammendum 17:58

Uh I'll just add a little bit about the interventions that Kristen uh mentioned, because I do think that that's something that comes up a lot for teachers. We talk about tier one, you know, core instruction for everybody. We talk about tier two and tier three interventions. Um, and I do think that uh there's a challenge too in that as you look at the literature, we do find exactly what Kristen said from like a meta-analysis, that these uh interventions focused on uh a narrow targeted type of skill that students need tend to be more effective. However, we know that a lot of the school-based interventions that are used are multi-component interventions that are actually focusing on multiple components and still show efficacy for students. Like they're showing, you know, if uh folks are using like Wilson Reading or something like that in their um in as their interventions, they're very targeted, but they do focus on multiple components sometimes, but they're very systematic and explicit in sort of how they build skills and strategies for students across time. And so there is sort of this balance between thinking about as a teacher and as a classroom teacher when I'm working with students, um, and maybe like seeing studies on Twitter or studies on Google Scholar or something like that, that context matters too, right? So thinking about the example that Kristen gave is a perfect example. I have a small group of students, they need uh multisyllabic word recognition instruction, I pull that group and work on that, is a little bit different than students who are in a tier three intervention that are getting pulled out and and and maybe having multiple skills that they need to be addressed, especially as they're into maybe third, fourth, and fifth grade. And so you may see different nuances in in the research as you start to look across some of those contexts. But but I think for classroom teachers who are really thinking about it, the example that Kristen gives is exactly the way that makes sense to think about the most effective use of potential small group time. And to your point, Melissa, I think really different than thinking about everybody needs to be in a small group for X number of minutes each day, versus students who need that extra boost on a very specific skill, they could get uh pulled into that small group even temporarily, right? While they develop that skill and then and then they're not in that small group, sort of rotating every day in in the way that we have in, you know, the way that I used to do it when I was teaching.

Tamara Williams 20:48

I'll just add, I I think though, this is the hardest thing for teachers to shift to because um understanding that, okay, as Kristen said, I used to be able to differentiate just by taking a book. But now if if that if that if we're saying that's no longer how we should do it, the teachers that I work with, they struggle then knowing, well, first feeling like, oh, I don't have to meet with everybody. And then secondly, they struggle with a little bit like, okay, then what do I do in a small group? Or, you know, what what does it look like? And so that's sort of where right now, even with the teachers that I'm working with at my school, we're trying to figure that out. Like we're trying to make sure that we're following the research, you know, as we understand it. Um, but but also um you they have to let it be, we all have to let it go. We can we don't have to see everybody in five groups every day, you know. And so um I know that's a big challenge for us at my school right now.

Practices Not Backed By Evidence

Lori 21:53

Yeah. So to kind of sum it up, it would it be right to say that there's like some research for the idea. Of small group instruction, but not necessarily the way that we're doing small group instruction. Like we might need to shift the way. So I'm wondering if we can actually kind of shift to what's not supported by research. Like, what do we know is definitely not supported by research? Um that might be a practice that we see or do in classrooms and schools. Then I think we can talk a little bit more about other like drawbacks and then what do we actually need to do? So we are going to get to, if you're listening, we are going to get to what do you need to do, but I want to make sure we like frame it really well first. So I'll turn it over and I'll just pass the baton to Kristen, because you've been kicking us off so nicely every time. Um, what is not supported by research that we might be seeing?

Kristin Conradi Smith 22:46

I mean, I think we've already kind of hinted at this, but we we lack research. And and there was a there was a study done, a review of studies done a couple of years ago in the review of educational research. Um we lack research for differentiation by text levels. There's simply no support for that. And that for any of us who came up in the 2000s, the lat the last two decades, that's sort of a a shock. Um, Steve and I were in the same room when that idea was sort of cast out at us 15 years ago, and and we kind of looked at each other, we're like, no way. And we immediately, while you know, this lecture was happening, jumped into the research to go, is this true? And that actually led to Steve led us in a review of of the research on text complexity. I guess that's that's the big one. You know, it's been around forever. We've all bought into this idea that I can find the instructional level of students. There's an independent and instructional and frustration level, and and that was first advanced in the 1940s, but we do not have evidence to say that that's how it works.

Melissa 23:52

Kristen, I have to tell you a funny story really quickly. I actually was at a conference once and we found a couple colleagues and I found Doug Fisher, and we like stalked him a little bit. We were being, you know, we were being those people. And I don't know what exactly the question we asked him, but we asked him something like what's like what's the big new thing that's coming down the pike? And this that's what he said to us. And this was, I don't know exactly, but probably at least 10 years ago, probably maybe more. And he said, Text leveling, it's there's just nothing, nothing to support it. And we, you know, we were big on guided reading in Baltimore City at that time. We were doing trainings on guided reading all the time. And so it was a big shock for us. I don't think we really got it. You know, I think we're it took it took a while still, but it was it was interesting that that was his answer. And and we had a similar reaction of like, I don't know. I don't know if he's right.

Kristin Conradi Smith 24:42

Well, and and I I hear you on that. It really was like pulling the rug from under all of us. It's what we all have done and we're doing. We all have classroom libraries, school libraries stocked with leveled systems. So um we all need to have grace for ourselves and for our schools and and everywhere. And thinking about making shifts, this was a really, really hard one and a shocking one, I think. Um at least for me when I first kind of learned about it.

Tamara Williams 25:12

Well, I'll I'll I'll share a funny story about Kristen because I had a colleague who was taking a class from Kristen, and she came back to to our literacy team and said, My my professor Lily Mary said this and talk, you know, was talking about not leveling, and we were all like, What? Who is this person? And what is she saying? So that was like our first uh we we had to shut the door and have hushed discussions about it. So um, so that that was kind of like our our first thing too. The the the rug was definitely pulled out from underneath our feet.

Lori 25:47

Well, Tamara, I'll tell you or like when Melissa told me that story, what she didn't say on the podcast is that they followed him into an elevator. Right, Melissa? Wasn't that the one that you followed into an elevator? I mean, you didn't need to share all that. I know. I just think it's great. It's great, great details that I think really sets the stage for how much you were into learning what he had to say. And but even so, I mean, you're stuck in an elevator. He's saying this, and you y'all were still like, I don't know. Anyway, Steve, do you have anything to add to um you have a funny story or about a no, I'm just kidding.

Steve Ammendum 26:26

Yeah, a Doug Fisher story really quickly. No. Um the the only thing I was gonna add, I think, is just a little nuance to that idea of text leveling. And in, you know, Kristen is is a hundred percent. I know I was kind of laughing that um we started Googling studies like immediately in this lecture um to start looking into some of these things. But I think one of the things um that goes sort of hand in hand with this idea of that there's uh no research evidence to support differentiation by text level is the text leveling system itself. And I know we'll probably talk about that a little bit more later, but you know, as you start to think about what's the difference between, you know, an M and an O in terms of the leveling system, and you think that's how we're going to differentiate for students, it it starts to fall apart a little bit logically as you really start to dig into it. And so I think that sort of goes hand in hand with that, with that same idea that Kristen presented.

The Problems With Text Levels

Kristin Conradi Smith 27:29

So and one other clarification I do think we do need to be careful about matching texts with readers when they're learning to read. So when I'm working with first graders, I'm still gonna be very careful because I don't want to just throw them into the deep end of the pool. And so um I don't want that message to get lost. We and and we also know that some texts are qualitatively and quantitatively more difficult than others. But as Steve said, um, particularly the guided reading leveling system, it's sort of um not necessarily transparent and it's very difficult to know the difference between an N and an O and a P and a Q. But I bought into that when I was a teacher for sure.

Melissa 28:14

Yeah, and we've talked to a lot of teachers who said on the, you know, when a student is labeled as one of those levels, it's also really hard to tell the parents what that really means. And it's hard for them to even know, like, okay, if they're a level L, what do I really need to do to move them up to the next level? It's not super clear because it's not, you know, it's it's because the text leveling isn't super clear. And so it's all just a little bit murky.

Kristin Conradi Smith 28:41

And Melissa, just to add to that, like when it's murky, then we don't necessarily know what to do to actually help them and to move them forward. We we use this term in um in the article, but we kind of called it the magic treehouse trap. And we love the magic treehouse books, but like you can have a kid then who in your head, that's their level, and then you actually aren't able to move them out of that level because you don't even know what the criteria are for advancement. So you're just sort of doing your thing, but then that poor kid is stuck in the same level year after year after year and never experiencing grade level texts. And so it's it's super problematic.

Melissa 29:17

And frustrating for students and teachers.

Kristin Conradi Smith 29:20

And parents. And parents. And librarians.

Melissa 29:26

All right. So I want to jump into, I mean, we've mentioned it a few times, but the the more of the drawbacks of small group instruction and specifically starting out with that idea of it being expensive, which I I loved reading about that. I actually read it a couple times. I was like, wait, but they don't talk really about money here. So it took it took me a minute to be like, wait, what are they talking about with it being expensive? So I'd love for you all to dig into um that idea of just how expensive it is and what that means.

Tamara Williams 29:54

How about I kick us off? You want me to do that?

Melissa 29:57

Yeah, go for it.

Tamara Williams 29:58

Okay, I'll kick us off on that. Um uh I think what we were we're really trying to talk about, and this is a term that um I know Kristen's come to my school, we talk about it a lot. It's yes, monetary, right? We talk about money, but small group is expensive in terms of time and people and management. And I think what we try to get across is that you know, when you've got those five or six students in front of you, um, you're not directly teaching the other the other students. So, what do you have to do in order to um you know help them along the way as well? We've sort of talked about this as like the management part of it is really difficult. So then you've got to find activities for those others to kind of be quiet and and and working and not busy work, but authentic. You know, you always hear everybody always say, oh, they need to be doing something authentic. And so um I think that it's expensive because you you are sacrificing, so to speak, what the rest of the kids are doing when you're teaching those six students. And I think one of the things that we've come to terms about too is that you know, we've got five and six-year-olds out there being independent contractors, basically, for sometimes upwards of two hours, depending on how much your literacy block is. And so we've had a really big discussion on all right, so if our literacy block is uh 120 minutes and I'm seeing a small group for 20 minutes, and maybe they're getting to read for seven minutes, um, you know, that is that really worth our currency uh of teaching and learning. So jump in, Kristen and Steve, if I didn't say something.

Kristin Conradi Smith 31:43

You you you hit the nail on the head. I mean, it costs a lot. Instruction costs a lot, and we have to be mindful of what what is it costing me, both in terms of all the planning, but but in order to execute it well. What is it costing me? What is it costing students? And um thank you for how you how you presented that, Tammy.

The True Cost Of Small Groups

Steve Ammendum 32:03

Yeah, that that was great. And you know, I I think that issue of what the independent contractors, as Tammy said, like I think that's a great way to think about it. And you know, I've heard Tim Shanahan talk multiple times in his blog and in different places about um, you know, like talking about uh sustained silent reading. I remember when the finding came out in the national reading panel way back, you know, a long time ago now, that there was no effect for SSR, that people were really upset about that. I know I was required to have 30 minutes of deer time every day in my classroom. And, you know, I had I taught multi-age, I had kindergarten first and second, and some of my students love that time in red, and some of my students just messed around, you know, during that time a lot. And I think that that's just a great example of if you have five groups going and the teacher has one group with them, and those other groups are independent contracting during that time, right? We know that whatever they're doing might be a really great, really engaging, really cool activity, but it's never going to be as effective as instruction from a teacher. And so you you give up a lot. That's part of the expense, is that you give up a lot for students and you know, for all the effort that teachers make during that time.

Kristin Conradi Smith 33:30

So you only want to do it if it's worth it. You only want to do it if you know what you're addressing, if you know you can target it, and then we can just sort of move it forward.

Melissa 33:41

I just have to say I really wish this was the way to look at small group instruction when I was in the classroom. The last classroom I was in was a sixth grade classroom, and I I took a guided reading course, and I was trying so hard to make this work, but I had I had a 55-minute class or something, you know, the middle school time period. It's always a little less than an hour. I had I had about 35 kids in that class, and I felt like a failure because I was like, how can I make any kind of how can I make that happen in this classroom where I also have a curriculum I'm supposed to be teaching? And and at the time I felt like a failure, but now looking back, I'm like, yeah, there's just no way that was going to happen. Like it was that I didn't have the time, I didn't have the resources, I didn't have the the you know, the right um the right amount of time to actually make anything happen. And it didn't make any sense to try and do this like leveling over here with guided reading while also trying to do this grade level curriculum at the same time. It just was not going to happen. So I wish I knew this then.

Steve Ammendum 34:45

Melissa, I always feel the same way. I always say, I wish I had known then what I know now. And and in some ways, I always felt like that small group rotation time, which was the bulk of my literacy instruction. It felt like the hamster wheel, too, right? I'm rotating these groups through, and I feel like I never quite finish with this group, and then I have to start with a brand new group, and they have a different book, even though we're doing the same thing. So I I I couldn't agree more. Like I wish the same that I had sort of this knowledge and background when I was teaching as well.

Lori 35:19

Yeah. Got to keep those teaching certificates fresh so you can go back for retirement, right? Uh I have an 11-year-old and she's in fifth grade, and she comes home every day, and they her school does still do these practices, and uh she's one of the lucky ones who can read. And she doesn't always read. Like, I just feel like I should say that. Like, kids can fool you, you know. I mean, if if the goal is to sit somewhere quietly for 20 minutes, there are gonna be kids who they're smart. And like Tamara, I'm sure you see it every day. They're smart, they sit quietly, or they don't sit quietly and they they act out because they don't want to read or they can't read, or they fool you because they want to daydream. You know, I think about soccer practice later and they write something on a post-it and flip six pages and know that you're not gonna know because you've not read that book either. Like it's not rocket science, right?

Tamara Williams 36:16

Well, and we uh I'll tell you, Lori, that's exactly what we were that we talked about in my school with the teachers. You know, we kind of said, I think we're creating fake readers, you know, sometimes because they did. They would sit, there would be some kids, like you said, that would maybe would act out. So then that's causing the teacher to have to um deal with those the with the behavior management. But if if you had a teacher who had that strict behavior management, then you still had some kids that were just kind of going through the pages and looking great, and um, but they weren't really doing what we wanted them to do. And so again, it's always coming back to that, okay. Well, what you know, what how can I use that time? And back to what Steve said, it's is it better if I'm directly instructing them? You know, how can I weigh the time of independence versus being with a teacher and getting direct instruction?

Lori 37:10

Such a good point. Yeah, I think it's a great time to shift to that. So, what do we actually need to know about small effective small group instructional like practices and time? And I'm wondering too if there's a differentiator between K2 and 3. So passing baton.

Independent Work Vs Instruction

Kristin Conradi Smith 37:28

Okay, I guess I'm gonna kick us off, but jump in at any point. I think the first thing that we all have to um be willing to accept is that it's not necessarily something that has to happen every day in the classroom. And it's also not necessarily something that's gonna have to fill in this huge chunk of time. So so for me, that's the first thing I try to stress to teachers. Like, we're not just asking you to change from level text to this other thing, and it has to look the exact same way. So, so opening opening ourselves up to the idea that it doesn't always have to happen, it doesn't have to happen in the same way or the same amount of time as it used to be done. Um, that's the first. And then let me, I guess I'll I'll jump next to Lori, what you said about K2 versus three, five, something that Steve and Tammy and I have talked a lot about. Um, we nerd it up with this one theory that I think is is not known enough by teachers, but it's called constrained skills theory. Um, and Scott Parris um kind of advanced it about 20 years ago, and it's just this idea that there are some reading skills that have a ceiling, that I um I have a targeted goal and students will get to mastery. For example, alphabet awareness, right? We've got 26 letters, so I know exactly what to do. I can assess and I can move you forward. So those constrained skills dominate a lot of K2, right? Because I know I need to teach you how to read. And so for K2, it's easier to find um needs and um target them specifically. But as kids sort of um move up in development, um, unconstrained skills play more of a role. So those unconstrained skills are comprehension, vocabulary, and to some extent fluency. And um, the way I best understand unconstrained skills is there is no ceiling. It's always, always shifting. I could read one text and comprehend it well, but then it's a different text or a harder text or whatever else. And so those are sort of lifelong things that we're always going to be kind of working on. And when we think of three, five, especially our students who are adept decoders, they are fluent with grade level text, it's much trickier to then figure out what skills I have to target because it's not just, oh, they got a 72 on this test, I need to do this. And so that constrained skills theory, again, um, I think it's the theory that I wish every teacher knew because I think understanding it helps us understand then when and under what conditions small group reading can actually be effective. But Tammy and Steve jump in, because I don't know if I explained that um well.

Steve Ammendum 40:01

Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I don't want to take us too far off track here, but of course, my brain always jumps to different ideas when um when Kristen mentions that. And so, like one of the things that came to my mind was a lot of teachers now are faced with um a lot of new information about the science of reading. And the the um the conversation around the science of reading tends to be dominated by what I would say is only part of the science, and that's the constrained skills that students have. And one of the reasons is because constrained skills, just like Kristen said, are much easier to target and measure, right? It's very easy to say a student knows, you know, 17 alphabet letters this week, and next week they know 23, and I can sort of keep track and target that really, really closely and accurately. And we have good assessments for doing that too. I think as students move into those unconstrained skills and we need to help students develop those, think about the difficulty and trying to pinpoint where a student is in comprehension, right, this week, and then think about two weeks later, what progress have they made in comprehension? And do we have a really good assessment to measure that? And and so as as people learn about science of reading and so on, we have to remember that the science is broad and it goes beyond just the constrained skills and the unconstrained skills or the language comprehension side of the simple view of reading. If you are familiar with that, you know, I think those are things that are much more challenging, but are super important for students' reading development. And so we have to really think carefully about that. And so I agree a hundred percent with Kristen that you know that's something that I wish teachers understood because it really helps contextualize lots of things for everyone around like small groups, what you teach, how you teach it, the assessments that you have, what they're good at, what they're not good at, and what that can give you in terms of helping plan and create your small groups.

Melissa 42:21

I just have to stop and say thank you so much for that conversation. I know Lori and I have talked about this idea before, both with assessments, small group, and the difference between the two sides of the rope. And having those terms, unconstrained and constrained skills, uh you just kind of blew my mind a little bit, and like they're on post-its already. And I think it's just a really nice way to talk about the the whys behind some of that, like you said, why you know, why it is harder to assess some of those skills in comprehension and harder to say what what intervention might need to happen from it. It it is a lot harder with those unconstrained skills. And and I think that's why, like you said, so much attention gets paid to those constrained skills because it is when we talk structured literacy or we talk, you know, data data-informed instruction, it's so much easier to say, okay, here it is. Here's what they're missing, here's what I'm gonna want to give them to get there. So thank you for that language. It's really helpful.

Kristin Conradi Smith 43:21

No problem. And just I I mentioned Scott Paris because he had the the big article on it, but Kay Stahl wrote a really nice um translation piece in in The Reading Teacher about this theory over 10 years ago. So just wanted to give a shout out to that.

Constrained And Unconstrained Skills

Lori 43:37

Nice. I if it's okay, I might ask you afterwards. I'll I'll try to find them. If I can't, I'll check in so that we can be sure to link them in the show notes. Our listeners are like the best and they want every resource that's mentioned. So we try to link every single thing if possible. So thank you for mentioning that. All right. So in your piece, you provided an overview of Of the ABCs of small group reading instruction. I'm wondering if you can share those with our listeners now and maybe a little bit about each one.

Steve Ammendum 44:08

So shall I kick off A? So A stands for assessment. And in our article, we talk about the use of assessment data to effectively form your small groups that you might use. And thinking about, as Kristen mentioned, especially that idea of that small groups don't have to look like they did before, right? So they don't have to be the whole literacy block or something like that, but thinking about especially targeting skills for students who need additional support. So a few of the things that we talk about are thinking about reliable and valid assessment data, right? So if you're gonna form effective small groups, you need to have good data that can help you do that. And so we of course want teachers to use the assessments that they have. We don't want to suggest that you should be doing a whole bunch of extra assessment or anything like that. And we, you know, I think I can speak for all three of us in saying that we're always wary of over-testing students. We don't want to spend all of our time doing assessment. We would much rather prioritize instruction during time that we have with students. So it's important to think about, you know, what assessments you have and what information that they can give you. And so in doing that, I think it's really important to help teachers understand and you know, for administrators to understand that what assessments give you versus how they might be marketed sometimes. Right. So one important distinction I think is a difference between a screening and a diagnostic assessment, right? A screening assessment is a brief assessment that you give to everyone in your class that alerts you if a student might have a need with a particular skill or something like that. Those types of assessments aren't necessarily super helpful in forming groups. They're really just identifying students who you might need to know more about. What's really helpful in informing your group membership is thinking about diagnostic assessments, which can pinpoint for you exactly the type of things that students need in terms of instruction. And so I think having really good data is what becomes really important in terms of helping identify what groups you might need and who might be in those groups, and thinking about what are the specific targeted skills that you might work on during that time.

Kristin Conradi Smith 46:47

And just to piggyback then on sort of what Steve just said, and then also constrained skills theory, um most of the comprehension assessment data that any of us would have access to is not going to be helpful. So if I have some kind of data that says most of my students are seven out of ten on finding the main idea, it's just, it's just not going to help. And so this is where it gets so much trickier in terms of how do we do targeted groups for students who are struggling with comprehension, because like we we don't necessarily know what to work with. But I would say, and and Tammy, I'd love your thoughts here too. Um, it's so valuable to have groups where, say, I know we're about to do a novel study on otter in my fourth grade classroom, and I know I have students who really just struggle with moving beyond literal, that I could form a group that maybe just meets for a week or so, but where I'm really supporting them with explicit instruction in terms of kind of moving from literal to making inferences. And I'm modeling for them and I'm giving them feedback and we're practicing. And so I just wanted to give a shout-out to that because I do worry when we talk about assessment, it's just so easy to go, I know what to do if it's a constrained skill. And I don't want to diminish the fact that there are going to be students, especially third, fourth, fifth grade, who will benefit from some targeted work on those unconstrained skills.

Tamara Williams 48:14

And I so I will add in, because that is something that I am working with. I've got some students who are beyond the constrained skills, right? But they're still not, they're they're not showing uh their ability to do some of those things on those dipsticks of the comprehension uh that we have to that we give, you know, three times a year as well. So it's like where where's that, where are they falling apart on that? I would say that for those students in the intervention in small group that we're doing, yeah, it's looking at building vocabulary. A lot of times, I mean, vocabulary is so important. Um, even morphology, using some of that in the small group. So kind of looking at some of those unconstrained skills or the top of the rope, even syntax. The other day I had to take a sentence and just break it down for some of my students, and we had to take it chunk by chunk by chunk. Um, so it is more difficult, I say, and sometimes I, you know, I pull my hair out trying to think like, okay, how can I help these students really understand some of these complex texts? But again, that's kind of where I feel like, well, now that I know about those unconstrained skills or I know about some of those pieces that could be clunks for them, then I can provide the teaching necessary, sometimes even debugging things to help them make better sense of text. Um so that's what we're trying out in small group intervention at our school.

Lori 49:42

I feel like we're folding over into B. Am I right? Like we we went naturally, we went from assessment A to what do we do with those assessments? Because we gave examples. And so I just say I I was like scrolling through your article again. I'm like, I think we're in B, but I don't, I'm not the authors.

Kristin Conradi Smith 49:59

So Welcome to any conversation with me. I'm always all over the place. So um sorry that I I kind of did that.

Lori 50:07

But no, we we needed the example, so I appreciate it. But I just for anyone listening, we're not talking about assessment anymore, we're in B, basics in books, and I'll turn it to you to you all now.

Using Assessments Wisely

Kristin Conradi Smith 50:17

Okay, so A is assessment. Um, B is twofold. So so basics and books. And so basics obviously are those foundational skills. If I have students who are struggling to read grade level text and have um specific deficits, I'm going to want to address that in any kind of small group I do. But the other one, and this is one that I feel like is not getting enough attention, um, especially right now with the science of reading movement, and it's the very books that we're using to advance reading. Like let's let's center books. Steve and I have always talked about this when we've worked with teachers. I want at least 50% of the time when I'm working with students in a smaller time to actually be their eyeballs on text where they're reading. Because we we've seen some descriptive research out there that says kids are not reading nearly as much as we think they are, especially not when they've got the coaching of a teacher right there to provide them with um feedback. And so books and basics are those is what B stands for.

Tamara Williams 51:18

And so I I'd like to just add about books too. And Kristen, you just basically jumped, uh helped me jump into this. Um I think that was another big shift of if you get rid of the levels, then really getting those books, and I think Shanahan says is the productive struggle, like being that right there to help facilitate that with students in a complex text. And then looking at, as Kristen said earlier, the qualitative features versus the quantitative features. So really taking a look as the teacher then and being able to say, okay, if this part of the book is gonna be tricky for them because they don't know about otters or they don't know about whales or they don't know about whatever, then I can build that background knowledge and I can help them with that part. If this sentence is gonna be tricky, if this literary feature like flashbacks is gonna be tricky. So it's it's a different way to look at books as well. It's not just saying, if we're taking away the leveling, it's looking at that book and thinking, well, I want it to be complex, and then where are the parts that could trip a student up? And then now I get to be the teacher, I can teach those and help that student navigate that text.

Steve Ammendum 52:28

And I would just add to that, um, I think I a hundred percent with with what Crispin and and Tammy said. I I think the other thing is thinking about books over time as well. So thinking about is there some coherence across time, as Freddie Hebert calls it, coherence across text, um, across time in what students are reading. And that could be content-based, right? Really thinking about, you know, texts that are grouped around particular content, especially as students are in grades three plus. Um, and you know, the other thing that I would say, just to check back in with uh unconstrained and constrained skills, you know, especially as we think about unconstrained skills, I think one thing that can trip us up is to treat unconstrained skills in the same way that we treat constrained skills as we're teaching reading, in that we need to teach this list of unconstrained skills. So we have to teach main idea, we have to teach making inferences, we have to teach compare and contrast. And so we have these district pacing guides or something that are like this week we're teaching main idea, and next week we're teaching um compare and contrast. But what we have to remember is that what we're really teaching is we're trying to help students become proficient and successful readers. And to do that, you read to learn, you read to take other perspectives, you read to develop your own knowledge about something. And so the outcome should never be the strategy or the skill. The outcome should always be understanding or learning or taking another perspective. And the strategy is just the vehicle that can get you there, and that adjusts based on the text that you're reading. And so I think that sometimes we we don't do students a great service if we're teaching them the other way, right? Where we're saying that you use main idea, right? But main idea is really tough in a narrative text, for example, versus a text like Danger Volcanoes, where we're reading about uh different ideas about volcanoes, and like picking out the main idea and the details matches perfectly with the text structure, right? My son used to love the, I don't know if you've ever seen those books, Who Would Win? And so it's like Killer Whale versus Great White Shark, who would win, right? And so it's like these there's this whole series of books, and he absolutely loved them. But like if you're reading that book, right, of course, like compare and contrast is the strategy that you would use, right? The the structure of the book is set up that way. It's perfect. But when you ask kids sort of like, what's the main idea of that book? It's much more, you know, kind of cloudy because it's not a good fit. And so really focusing in on how we think about those unconstrained skills, I think, over time, using the books that we use and thinking about how we teach those kinds of strategies is really, really important.

Tamara Williams 55:44

I wanted to highlight something that Steve said, and that is um the idea of kind of like those text sets. Um, the idea of you know, having texts that are um related in some in some instance. We we call them uh we have like a um a feature text that we're using, and then we try to build it with companion text. So we're trying to build that knowledge, have that vocabulary across text. Um, does that help you, Kristen? Were you were you gonna try to say something about that?

ABCs: A Is For Assessment

Kristin Conradi Smith 56:16

I I was. And so when we're talking about basics and books, I I guess the real thing is is let's move away from worksheets where I've found this is the skill and this is what I'm gonna work on, and instead go if our whole class is reading this novel, maybe I need to do a deeper dive or a second read in a certain chapter with some of my students to really hit on a specific um comprehension strategy. Or maybe I need to work on background knowledge by incorporating uh nonfiction text that's gonna help them then better be more successful with the whole class novel. And so um again, Freddie Hebert's work, I think, is really um it's informing a lot of how I'm thinking about how we use text in the classroom. Her notion of she calls it text diets. We have to pay attention to the collective, the coherence of text that our students are exposed to. And as we all know, background knowledge matters so much. And of course, then why not think about how kids are building that?

Lori 57:13

Yeah, I'm so glad that we're having this conversation. I know we're lingering a lot in the bees, the bee here, um, but I think it's a really important place to stay for a bit because like that first B, the basics, is pretty, like we said, cut and dry. It's the second B that a lot of teachers struggle with. And I say that in a great way because teachers are asking so many questions about it. We get so many questions about this. Um, and that's what I think is drawing me to this part is teachers who don't have high quality materials. This is this is key. So teachers are always asking us, I don't have high quality materials. What can I do? This is what you can do. What everyone has just said, right? Like have that core text, find that coherence of text, um, build a text set around important topics. Um, that is really important. And if you do have high quality materials, because I think there's often this like, well, like what's the difference? High quality materials do this for us. This is why they're high quality. Like I will say, many high-quality materials do this for us. That is, it provides that coherence for students and for teachers throughout the grade level, right? So I'm a second grade student, I'm going to have coherent um text sets all and build knowledge of topics throughout my second grade experience. But then I think, and this is the part where it gets, I think, tricky if you haven't seen high-quality materials, right? Um, it provides that coherence from grade to grade. And that's the part that even like the best teachers in the whole world, we can't do that because we can't control what happens in other classrooms unless there's a curriculum. And so that is, I think, a really important thing to name here that if I'm a second grade student, like and and or maybe I'm a second grade teacher, right? And I have my second graders in front of me. I know what knowledge they're gaining. I know the text that they're reading in second grade. I'm also aware of what they've read in first, what what they've learned about in the topics that they've built knowledge on in first, um, as well as those basic skills, right? So all of my B's. And then also I'm aware of what's going to happen in third grade and fourth grade, as well as the instructional routines that are happening and how they're accessing those. So I just want to make sure that we pause and say that here, because that I think is like a key differentiator. And we get this question, I mean, probably every day on Instagram or Facebook. Um, I don't have high quality materials. What can I do? This is a great point to like listen to this end part of the conversation again and again and again. If you're a teacher who doesn't have high quality materials, and if you're a teacher who does, listen again and think like, how can I even deepen what's there? So I just wanted to pause and say that because it was really exciting to stay here for a bit and talk about it.

Melissa 1:00:06

I was gonna say, Lori, because even you know, when we worked with our the middle school teachers in Baltimore who were working with students who were not at grade level coming into sixth grade, the first instinct, even with high-quality materials, is okay, if I'm going to pull a small group of students to work on, the instinct is I got to find an easier text for them to work with. When in fact, what we ended up doing was no, what's the text that they're using in the classroom? And let's work on their fluency with that text. And what we found was that, yeah, then those kids went to the class and felt like so much better about what they were doing in class and that grade level text because of the work they were doing in their small group, working on fluency, working on the prosody and expression and doing all of that work separately. So I just wanted to call that out too, Lori, that even if you have that, even you're if you're working in intervention or small group, like see what if you can use those grade level materials for that as well.

Lori 1:01:01

Yeah. And that makes me think so much too of what Kristen said, like pulling that small group of students, that small group of sixth graders to say, hey, let's reread this chunk of this chapter because it was such an important point. Yeah. Or previously.

Kristin Conradi Smith 1:01:15

Yeah. Yeah. And again, that's freeing because it's it costs me less. I'm not having to find another text to do this other lesson. Instead, I'm able to use the text that we're doing, and I'm differentiating the support rather than the text. And so it's just a matter of, okay, what do these kids need instead of, oh, let me go find this other book, and that's the expensive part.

ABCs: B Is Basics And Books

Melissa 1:01:36

Absolutely. So I know we're like way over time, and we apologize. Um and I don't know that we got to the C. So I'll ask two questions. If there's anything about the C that you really want to make clear, but then I'll open it up to just is there anything else you want our listeners to know before we wrap up?

Kristin Conradi Smith 1:01:55

I guess I'll say with the C, and and we'll go short here. If I am spending the time and the resources to make small groups happen, then I need to capitalize on what that affords me. And what it needs to afford me is time where I'm actually providing specific targeted feedback for students. So C is really that sort of clarity of like what am I actually communicating to my students if I'm having this small group time? And so if we think about that time as like I'm a coach, what am I actually saying to my students in that time? And and I like um Peter Johnson has a book called Choice Words, where he says, point to students' learning trajectories, remind them that last week this was something that was difficult for them, but now they're able to do it. And so we're really by how we're communicating, helping our students develop their own agency in the process, but also um become better readers.

Steve Ammendum 1:02:46

And I just want to highlight, you know, the C when we talk about clear directions. One of the things we highlight in there is setting a clear purpose for students as they come into those small group lessons. And I can't say enough how important that is. I do a lot of work now with multilingual learners and helping teachers think about how to enhance their curriculum, even when they have really high-quality materials to really support their students who are multilingual. And that is one of the key strategies that I think is so helpful. Rather than, you know, pick up your book or let's look at this passage to really be very explicit about today. We're going to read a passage about volcanoes. When we read, I want you to see if you can identify three different types of volcanoes, right? It just really focuses students thinking and their reading and so on. And that can just be so helpful and supportive for students and teachers, you know, as they're thinking about if I'm gonna spend this time to make this small group happen for these students, that I want to make it as effective as possible. And that's one way that can really support students.

Tamara Williams 1:03:58

I'll add on to that, Steve. Um, we just a simple thing to change is to say pay attention to. We that's how our teachers have kind of brought that part into every time they get ready to read something, pay attention to, and then we read, and then we discuss, you know, so that they know what they're looking for.

Melissa 1:04:18

Yeah, well, thank you all for this amazing conversation. I I feel like I want to like have a second round of unconstrained and constrained skills conversation with you all. I think we could keep talking. Um, but thank you all so much for sharing this. This was so helpful and a really great pairing with our last episode, which was a teacher talking about a lot of these same shifts that he made in his classroom. And it's just so nice to hear that the the research is right there with that practice. And and I know this is gonna be really helpful for a lot of teachers and maybe hard for some some teachers to hear as well, but that that's okay too.

Steve Ammendum 1:04:55

Thanks for having us.

Melissa 1:04:56

Yeah, thank you. Loved being here.

Tamara Williams 1:04:58

Thanks.

Lori 1:04:59

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Melissa 1:05:11

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Lori 1:05:21

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Melissa 1:05:31

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Lori 1:05:43

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