Do Teacher Perceptions of Students’ Academic and Behavioral Skills Influence Time Spent in Small-Group Reading Instruction?

Small-group instruction has the potential to support students’ reading growth. Teachers can use knowledge of students’ skill profiles to inform the types and amounts of instruction they provide; however, the extent to which teachers do this is largely unknown. Among first (n = 661) and third graders (n = 364), we investigated whether (1) teacher perceptions of students’ academic skills predicted the amount of small-group reading instruction students received; (2) teacher perceptions of students’ behavioral skills predicted instructional time, or moderated relation between academic skills and instructional time; and (3) teaching experience influenced this pattern of results. Although perceptions did not directly predict instructional time, first graders with higher levels of both academic competence and problem behaviors received the most small-group instruction. For first grade, we also found an effect for years of experience teaching at that same grade level. These findings have implications for future study of teachers’ instructional decision-making.