Methodology used to teach reading at the primary level finds itself at the end of a large pendulum. It swings back and forth as trends in education come, go away, and come back again under new names. The concept of reading groups (or grouping children heterogeneously) for reading instruction is one that continually finds its way back to primary classrooms.

The reason reading groups, as a form of instructional practice, inevitably finds it's way back into the mainstream is practicality. Young readers have short attention spans and are very distractible. Teaching in small, manageable groups, affords the teacher the maximum amount of time during which the students are able to remain focused. Simply put, it is easier to keep a handful of children attending to instruction than it is to keep an entire class full children on task.

Another benefit of smaller instructional groups is it gives each student more interaction time with the teacher. Children get more turns to participate in smaller groups. This means more practice. Children become better readers through practice. The challenge becomes finding a way to keep young distractible children on task long enough to get substantial reinforcement of skills into their permanent database of knowledge. Smaller groups makes this more of a possibility.

Reading groups can be structured in two ways, heterogeneously or homogeneously. Both ways are beneficial though schools typically use the homogeneous model.

Grouping children according to ability has fallen in and out of favor over the years. Yet it seems to find it's way, despite its faults, back into reading instruction again and again. Homogeneous groups give the teacher the opportunity to attempt to individualize instruction to meet the needs of the students. Teachers can group children according to abilities and then focus on the instructional needs of each group.

The criticism of this philosophy is that children achieve what is expected of them and for children in the low functioning group, this offers little opportunity to improve their reading "lot in life." This is a legitimate concern of those objecting to homogeneous grouping. It can be construed as a form of labeling that many children live with throughout their entire educational experience. A related criticism of the instructional model of reading groups is that children quickly figure out where their reading group is in relation to the other reading groups, and develop

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