Last week I was talking with several colleagues about the elements of successful small group instruction.  We started chatting about the core curriculum, determining skill based groups, materials for use during small groups and on and on.  We quickly, however, turned our focus to classroom management.  The reality is is that if classroom management is lacking there really is no way to run small groups.  Successful small group instruction is highly dependent upon having all the other children highly engaged and independent in their center activities.  In order to make those precious minutes of small group intervention count within the classroom, your instructional time needs to be free of interruption.  During this discussion, one of my collegues kept whispering “Harry