Ask a multi-grade teacher what’s planned for reading today, and you might want to pull up a chair. The answer could involve several grade levels, a dozen decisions about who learns what together, and a schedule that still has to accommodate math, science, and everything else. For educators leading multi-grade classrooms in rural schools, that kind of creative problem-solving is all in a day’s work.
This is the third post in our Rural Teaching Preparation series, featuring conversations with contributors to Teaching in Rural Places, 2nd Edition. Our previous discussions covered why understanding rural communities matters for teaching and how community walks can strengthen rural teacher preparation. This time, we’re looking inside the multi-grade classroom, with a particular focus on reading instruction.
To explore the topic, I spoke with Allison Nys, a former rural Montana teacher and administrator, who spent 16 years teaching at Pioneer School near Billings, Montana, the same rural school she attended as a child. Twelve of those years were spent teaching a combined fifth- and sixth-grade classroom. She later worked as a principal and curriculum director.
For rural teachers, professional learning coordinators, and preparation program leaders and instructors, this conversation offers insights into integrating subjects, planning across grade levels, differentiating reading instruction, and making the most of the strengths of rural schools. Then check out the resources below for practical guidance on teaching in multi-grade classrooms.
The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Caitlin Scott (CS): Why was it important to address multi-grade instruction in a book about rural teaching?
Allison Nys (AN): I remember sitting down and thinking about how a day looks when you are teaching everything from music to art to reading to PE to science, social studies, all of it. How do you even start that? Because a lot of those teachers don’t have prep time. How do you take all of these standards that you’re expected to teach to every single fifth grader and every single sixth grader and fit them in the time frame that you have in a day, into a year?
We had a lot of conversations about, say, if you’re teaching a specific novel and it’s talking about the Revolutionary War, how do you then incorporate social studies into your unit to teach that at the same time, so you’re saving some time in your day?
That’s the piece that I think we probably spent the most time on: How do we manage time for these teachers?
CS: What’s especially valuable about teaching reading in a multi-grade classroom?
AN: I think having an interdisciplinary approach is one of the best ways my students learned because it made it more real world.
If we were reading about the Revolutionary War, or the Depression, or the Civil Rights Movement, whatever we were reading about, I was trying to incorporate other things. It made it more real because it put what they were reading about into the perspective of, this really happened in our history, or this really is a true aspect of science.
We read a story that featured the Golden Gate Bridge, and we started talking about different modern wonders of the world. The students actually built wonders of the world, so they had that ability to incorporate some math and science into one project. It was all one assignment. I think they didn’t feel so overwhelmed.
The challenge as a teacher is that you have to plan that. I have fifth graders and I have sixth graders, and I’m teaching this unit, so I need to make sure I’ve covered fifth-grade standards and sixth-grade standards.
CS: How can teachers meet students’ different reading needs when they’re teaching multiple grades?
AN: If you’re teaching a multi-grade classroom, you’ve got to combine standards. Let’s say you’ve got third and fourth grade. Every single third grader needs to know a standard in third grade, and there’s going to be a standard in fourth grade that is one step higher.
Then it’s, ‘Okay, now I need to tier this out.’ This student needs this support, that student needs that support.
It’s group work. In Montana, we have a lot of one-room schoolhouses where you’ve got a first grader or third grader, a sixth grader, and an eighth grader. When you’re working with the second grader, your eighth grader is actually sitting nearby with your first grader and both are reading independently.
I work with one teacher who’s got nine students, and they’re on seven different grade levels. I support her with thinking through, ‘Let’s put these five students in this part of the platform or this digital game so that you can work with these four students on the skills they’re missing.’
That’s the planning piece that those rural teachers really have to dive into. They’ve got nine students on seven different grade levels. They need to figure out how they can group them so that they can work individually with students to give them tiered support.
These rural teachers have to combine what they can, and they have to figure out how to divide and conquer so that they have time with each kid who needs those skills.
CS: What strengths of rural schools help teachers understand and respond to students’ learning needs?
AN: I think rural teachers know their students a little bit deeper because a lot of times they have them for multiple years.
I knew my students before they got to me because the fourth-grade teacher and I had lunch together every day and we talked about our students. In rural schools, you know the entire family. You know their siblings, you know their parents, and you knew if a family was struggling. You knew all of this family history before they walked into the classroom on day one. The strength here was you could start immediately with the supports they needed. You didn’t have to get to know the student and family! You already knew them. You knew if they needed school supplies and you made sure their desk was ready for them the moment they walked in the door. This is what I mean by community! You don’t just become part of the community, you become family.
CS: What would you want future rural teachers to understand about the experience?
AN: I think community and family is what kept me at Pioneer for as long as I was. I would say to myself, ‘I can’t leave this year, I’ve got that child’s sibling coming up, and I would love to teach them.’
If we’re wanting people to go into education in general, and we’re wanting them to go into rural schools, that’s the story that needs to be told. When you get into these schools, it’s about the community, and you just become part of it.
The positive is the incredible community and families that you get out of that. Every family is inviting you to their family functions. In fact, I once got a wedding invitation from a former student. Some of those families are still really good friends of mine today. Not only did I have wedding invites, I got baby announcements, letters from students thanking them for changing their lives, graduation announcements for high school and college, watched them play high school and college sports, and occasional social media posts, that remind me of the life I built with these students!
If we want our recently graduated teachers to go to our rural schools, we need to show them what is amazing about rural education — it’s community and family. That is the piece we have to share.
Parting Thought
For rural teacher preparation programs and professional learning providers, Nys’s experiences point to valuable areas of focus: helping teachers plan across grade levels, integrate subjects, organize group and independent learning, and provide targeted reading support. Giving future rural teachers opportunities to practice these approaches can help prepare them for the everyday decisions involved in teaching multi-grade classrooms.
Multi-Grade Teaching Resources
- Teaching Reading in Multigrade Classrooms (Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest, 2026)
- Teaching in Rural Places, 2nd Edition (Brenner et al., 2026)
About Allison Nys and Teaching in Rural Places
Allison Nys is a former rural Montana teacher and administrator with more than 25 years of experience in public education. Her career includes classroom teaching, school leadership, and district curriculum work. She serves on the National Rural Education Association’s board of directors and has twice held the organization’s presidency. She is currently a Partner Success Manager at Discovery Education, where she previously managed statewide and strategic partnerships, including work with the Montana Office of Public Instruction.
Teaching in Rural Places is designed for preservice teachers, beginning teachers, teacher educators, and others supporting educators in rural schools. The book provides practical strategies for understanding rural communities, recognizing local strengths, building relationships, and developing place-conscious instruction.
Sources
Brenner, D., Downey, J., Eppley, K., Schulte, A. K., & Azano, A. P. (2026). Teaching in rural places: Thriving in classrooms, schools, and communities. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-in-Rural-Places-Thriving-in-Classrooms-Schools-and-Communities/Brenner-Downey-Eppley-Schulte-Azano/p/book/9781032887531
Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest. (2026). Teaching reading in multigrade classrooms. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/resource-library/resource/fact-sheetinfographicfaq/teaching-reading-multigrade-classrooms
This blog is for educational and informational purposes only and does not necessarily represent a Marzano Research endorsement of any product or program.