Reading Groups: Management

A few ideas on managing the class while trying to run effective reading groups:

• I try to make my schedule predictable so that the kids will know what to expect.
• I don't change my Word Work choices very often so that they don't have to be re-taught (now that they have a good repertoire of  activities, they need much less time).
• I wear a hard hat while teaching small groups (or when assessing - any time I don't want to be interrupted.)  It's a real hard hat that I painted and used scrapbooking stickers on.  I call it my "Work Hat".  When I wear it, only emergencies can be reported to me - bleeding, fire, or throwing up!  If I see someone trying to get in to talk to me during a group, I point to my hat, and they usually move along.  If they think it is important, I try to walk them through some problem solving without letting them tell me what is happening (Is someone hurt?  Is there something you can do to make it work for a few minutes until I can fix it?)
• If kids are disruptive (seems to be my Read to Someone kids, usually...) I ask them to come sit near me.  I try not to go through the rules again or anything that takes time from my group - just a few words (or a glare and point, if I'm lucky!) to get them back into the routine.
• I use a timer to keep me on schedule.  I find that they really are only able to hold it together on their own for 10-15 minutes, so I try to make sure I don't push them past that and end up with behavior problems.