The Role of Hang‐Out Ties in Reading Comprehension and Small Group Interactions for Multilingual Students

ABSTRACT Small groups are commonly used in elementary reading classrooms, but relatively little research has examined the social factors that support small group reading instruction. This study tests whether the number of hang‐out ties (i.e., the number of ties between students who like to hang out together) in small groups predicts reading comprehension among multilingual children in Grades 4 and 5, and whether interactions differ in small groups with high and low numbers of hang‐out ties. We leverage data from a randomized controlled trial to examine whether the number of group hang‐out ties predicts the later reading comprehension scores of participating multilingual students ( N = 143; 46% female; 57% Asian American) using autoregressive path analysis. Furthermore, we explore differences in the patterns of interaction for groups with low (e.g., 0 to 2 ties) and high (e.g., 3 to 6) numbers of hang‐out ties to see whether these differences might help explain the predictiveness of group hang‐out ties on reading comprehension. Results indicated that the number of group hang‐out ties negatively predicted later reading comprehension. Exploratory analyses of interaction patterns using observation data revealed that teachers asked more open‐ended questions and elicited more student responses in groups with low numbers of hang‐out ties. These findings suggest that small‐group instruction may be most effective when students can learn from peers they know less well, as these other peers may offer novel linguistic assets, and that teachers may foster more group discussion when peers do not have existing hang‐out ties.