In the Scholastic Dashboard, you can use the Grouping Tool to create small groups informed by data gathered through Scholastic Ready4Reading. The more time students spend using Ready4Reading, the more data there will be to inform your small groups.
To automatically generate small groups based on your students’ Ready4Reading skill performance or grade equivalent scores, select Create New Groups from the Ready4Reading Grouping Tool drop down.
Organize Your Group
Select how you want to organize your new group.
The Ready4Reading Grouping Tool provides three ways to automatically create student groups using the most current data, and the ability to create teacher-selected groups.
- Teacher Selected: Allows teachers to organize students into small groups, aligned to their own preference.
- Skills: Automatically generates small groups according to student skill performance, obtained through usage of Ready4Reading.
- Grade Equivalent: Automatically generates small groups according to Grade Equivalent (GE) scores, determined by the Letters2Meaning (L2M) Assessment, included in the Ready4Reading system.
When there is insufficient data to automatically generate a group, group organization choices will appear disabled. If your school has access to Ready4Reading, we recommend encouraging students to spend additional time in the digital program. This will help generate sufficient usage data to support meaningful insights.
Without access to Ready4Reading, the grouping tool will not be accessible.
Customize Your Group
Once you’ve identified how to organize your groups, additional information may be required, to automatically generate the small group. Enter the required information and select Continue.
Group Names
When Teacher-Selected is chosen as the group organization method, you’ll need to name each group before proceeding to the next step.
- Enter a name for each required group.
- To create additional groups, click Add a Group.
Number of Groups
Identify the number of groups required in your class. The recommended number of students per group is four to six, for optimal small group management. The Ready4Reading Grouping Tool may adjust the number of groups to best fit the student scores in the class, according to the organizing principles you have selected.
Preview & Edit Groups
After you select the organizing principles for your groups, the Ready4Reading Grouping Tool will generate a set of groups. In this step, you’ll have the option to edit the automatically generated groups, or create your student groups if you’ve selected teacher-selected.
Group Header
The header at the top of each group provides an overview of the group’s Grade Equivalents skills.
- Grade Equivalent: The range of grade equivalent scores, from low to high, within the group. This range will only show for group sets created with Grade Equivalent as the organizing principle.
- Ready4Reading Targeted Skills: The skills that students in this group would benefit from additional practice with, according to their performance in the Scholastic Digital program.
- See More Data: Opens a report that provides a full overview of student skill performance from the Ready4Reading data used to inform the small groups.
Student Data Summary
For group sets created with the Ready4Reading Skills organizing principle, additional detail is available about each student. At the bottom of the screen, toggle to Student Data Summary: On to open each student’s tile and reveal that student’s top three targeted skills.
Customize Your Groups
You can customize the groups generated by the Grouping Tool:
- Review your groups and make any revisions by moving students among groups.
- Review the name of this set of groups; revise as needed.
- Review the name of each group; revise as needed.
Move Students Within Groups
To move students within groups:
- Check the box(es) next to the student(s) you’d like to move to another group.
- At the bottom of the screen, use the Select a Group drop-down menu to choose the group the student(s) will be moved to. (You can also add a new group.)
- Select Move Students. You’ll see the selected student(s) in their new group. (The data in the Group Header will update automatically.)
- Continue moving students as needed.
Group Data Chart
For detailed information about each student in a group, select the See More Data in the group header to view a Group Data Chart. This printable report displays the most recent data from Ready4Reading.
Student Data Chart
To view this report by student, select the graph icon next to the student’s name for a Ready4Reading Skills group.
When you have finished, select Save Groups.