How Does Student Ability Grouping Support Comprehension During Balanced Literacy Rotations?

The importance of student grouping in education has been identified as a crucial part of instruction in classrooms across the country. Some research has indicated that the best way to teach students in a small group setting during English language arts, such as guided reading, is through same academic ability grouping. Other studies claimed that grouping students based on their learning goals with mixed reading abilities was a more successful way to promote student achievement. Through these conflicting methodologies, the focus of this project was to investigate if one specific style of grouping, homogeneous or heterogeneous, had a greater effect on students’ growth in comprehension during guided reading instruction. Students were instructed for a total of twelve weeks: six weeks in heterogeneous groups and six more weeks in homogeneous groups. The goal was to understand which style of grouping best supported each students’ growth in comprehension skills and where students made the most academic progress. Formal and informal assessments were administered at the beginning and the end of each six-week session, and following the twelve weeks, the assessments scores and data were used to compare the two groups to see if students’ comprehension skills and abilities increased more when placed in the homogeneous group or heterogeneous group. Results from this study indicated that students grouped by their learning goals or academic needs through heterogeneous grouping made more progress in their comprehension and had a deeper knowledge and understanding of the literature when compared to students placed in homogeneous groups.