How to run small-group rotations

1 What a small-group rotation is for

In a small-group rotation the class splits into groups, and each group spends the same number of minutes at each of several stations before moving on. One station is your table, where you teach a small group directly. The others are independent: reading to self, word work, a math game, a task card deck, writing. When the rotation is done, every group has been to every station once, and you have taught every group.

The reason to do it is the teacher table. A lesson for five students lets you hear every child read, watch every child solve a problem, and fix a mistake at the moment it happens. That is hard to do with twenty-five students in front of you. The other stations exist so that the teacher table can happen without interruptions.

Small groups are also how many schools deliver extra help in reading. The What Works Clearinghouse's practice guide on response to intervention in the primary grades recommends intensive, systematic instruction on a few foundational reading skills, in small groups, for students who score below the benchmark on a screening, and rates that recommendation as backed by strong evidence. It describes those groups as meeting three to five times a week for 20 to 40 minutes. Your rotation is not the same as a school's intervention plan, but the teacher table is often where that kind of help happens.

2 Forming the groups

Groups for the teacher table work best when they are built from what students showed you recently, and when they change. A group that stays fixed all year tends to become a label; a group that changes every few weeks follows the skills.

• Use this week's evidence. Exit tickets, a running record, a quick check, or the morning work students missed. Sort by the skill they need next, not by an overall level.
• Keep groups small. Four to six students at the teacher table is a common size. Smaller groups for students who need the most help.
• Plan for change. Look at the groups every two to four weeks, or whenever a check shows a student is ready to move.
• Mix the other centers if you want. The groups that move around the room can be the same as the teacher table groups, or mixed. Same groups are simpler to run.

The random group maker is useful for the mixed version, and the gradebook can tally exit tickets as got it, almost or not yet, which makes the not-yet group easy to find. Both keep the class list in your own browser.

3 Building the rotation chart

The chart is the one thing every student looks at. It should say, at a glance, which group goes to which station and when. The free rotation chart maker builds one from three choices:

1. Name the centers by their activity: Teacher table, Word work, Read to self, Math games. Two to eight centers.
2. Pick how many groups, up to one for each center.
3. Pick the minutes at each center, from 5 to 30, and the start time.

It prints a landscape chart with a row for each round and its times (9:00 to 9:15, and so on) and a column for each group. Each group moves one center along every round, so every group visits every center once and no center ever has two groups. The groups are named Red Robins, Blue Whales, Green Frogs and so on, so no child's name is typed into a website. Write the members on the printed chart by hand.

There are as many rounds as there are centers. If you have fewer groups than centers, some center sits empty each round, and on some rounds that will be the teacher table. Use that round to walk the room and check on the independent centers, or set the number of centers equal to the number of groups.

Run it on the board puts the rotation on the projector: the round, the time left, and each group's center. When a round ends it chimes and moves every group on, and it stops after the last round. Your centers and minutes stay in this browser and in the link after the # sign.

4 Planning the teacher table

The teacher table needs a plan that fits the minutes. For a fifteen-minute round, a simple shape works for most subjects:

1. Warm-up, two minutes. A quick review of something the group already knows: read three words, solve two facts.
2. Teach, five minutes. One skill, shown clearly, with one example worked together.
3. Practice, six minutes. Every student does it, out loud or on a whiteboard, while you listen and correct.
4. Check, two minutes. One question each, and a note on your clipboard about who has it.

Keep the materials for each group in a labeled folder or tub by your chair, so a group sits down and starts at once. Have a pencil, whiteboards and the book or problems ready before the rotation begins.

Decide what you will do when a student from another center comes to the table. Many teachers use a signal, such as a hand on the shoulder or a card on the table, that says "I see you, wait" without stopping the lesson. Teach it in the first week, before the rotation runs at full speed.

What to say"When I'm at the teacher table, I'm teaching. If you're stuck, try it another way, ask a neighbor quietly, then move on to the next part. I'll come round between rounds."

5 Centers that run without you

Every independent center has to pass one test: could a student do it alone, today, with no help from you? If the answer is no, the teacher table will be interrupted, and the rotation stops working.

• One clear task. "Read two books from your book box" is clear. "Do some reading" is not.
• Skills already taught. Centers are practice. New teaching happens at your table.
• A way to finish and a way to check. A recording sheet, a key, a partner or a self-check.
• An early finisher rule. A book, a review card ring or a drawing about the reading.

A task card deck is one of the easiest centers to keep fresh, because the routine stays the same while the deck changes. The guide to task cards in centers covers setting one up. The math center ideas and reading center ideas lists have many more.

Keep one quiet center, such as reading to self, next to your table, and put the noisier ones, such as a math game, on the far side of the room. Noise carries, and the group at your table needs to hear one another.

6 Launching rotations over the first weeks

A rotation is a lot of routines at once. Launch it one piece at a time, and don't start the teacher table until the other centers run on their own.

1. Week one: one center at a time. Teach each center's task to the whole class, then let everyone practice it at their seats.
2. Week two: move without you teaching. Run the rotation with short rounds and no teacher table. You walk the room, praise what works, and fix what doesn't.
3. Week three: open the teacher table. Start with short lessons, and stop the rotation for a quick reset if the room gets loud.
4. After that: change the work, not the routine. New decks and new books each week, the same chart and signals.

Practice the move itself. On the chime, students stop, clean up, check the chart and walk to the next center. Time it with the class and try to beat the time. A move that takes ninety seconds four times a day is six minutes of teaching lost.

Use a short signal to stop the whole room when you need to, and practice it until everyone freezes at once. The timer and the chime on the rotation board do the moving; your signal is for the times something has gone wrong.

7 Rotations by grade band

Kindergarten to 2nd grade

Shorter rounds, often 10 to 15 minutes, and centers with very few steps. Pictures on the chart help pre-readers find their center: a book for read to self, a pencil for writing. The teacher table at this age is usually phonics and reading, with a short lesson and a lot of reading aloud.

3rd to 5th grade

Rounds of 15 to 20 minutes and four centers is a common shape. Students can handle a center with a recording sheet and a key. The teacher table can be reading groups in one block and math groups in another, with the same chart and groups.

6th to 8th grade

Middle school classes more often call them stations, and the whole rotation may fit in one class period with two or three rounds. Students can run a station from written directions, and a station can be a short collaborative task. The teacher table is a good place for reteaching after a quiz.

8 Common problems and fixes

• The teacher table keeps getting interrupted. A center is too hard or unclear. Fix that center, and teach the wait signal again.
• Moves take too long. Practice the move on its own and time it. Clean-up starts at a one-minute warning.
• One group never finishes. Cut the task, not the time. Every other group would have to wait.
• The room gets loud. Move the noisy center away from your table, and use a noise meter during practice weeks.
• Some students need you more. See them at the table, then again for a few minutes while others are at an independent center, or on a second rotation later in the day.
• The same students are always in the bottom group. Regroup by skill every few weeks, from new evidence.

Give a change a week to settle. The first day of anything new in a rotation is the loudest one.