UFLI Small-Group Reading Intervention

The UFLI Small-Group Reading Intervention was designed to address the same literacy difficulties as the UFLI Tutoring for Beginning Readers program, but with groups of three to five students, rather than one-on-one.  The session sequence and procedures are altered to allow for group participation and to make it feasible for the teacher to manage.

For example, with kindergarten students, the following is a preferred sequence:

• Step 1: Gaining Fluency & Measuring Progress
• Step 2: Introducing & Reading a New Book
• Step 3: Word Work with Manipulative Letters
• Step 4: Rereading the New Book

With first-grade students, this sequence tends to work best:

• Step 1: Gaining Fluency & Measuring Progress
• Step 2: Word Work with Manipulative Letters
• Step 3: Introducing & Reading a New Book
• Step 4: Writing for Reading

In a study comparing one-on-one to small-group implementation, students in both conditions made similar literacy gains overall, although the rate of progress was somewhat slower in the group setting.  In a study of small-group implementation with English language learners, adding an abbreviated one-on-one session to the small-group implementation promoted achievement gains for non-responders.