Hi Y'all! Hope you're having a wonderful October. I can't believe our first 9 weeks are already over. Boy is time flying. My kiddos are moving right along and I greatly attribute that to what's happening during our reading block. To start, the curriculum we use for whole group is the BEST. If you haven't heard of DSC or Making Meaning I highly suggest you check it out and beg your administrator to use it! It does such a good job of having the students lead the discussions, analyze and interpret awesome texts, interact with each other through partner and group discussions, use higher order thinking, and problem solving. Can I just reemphasize that it uses real children's literature like Chrystanthemum by Kevin Henkes, Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats, and It's Mine by Leo Lionni to name a few. Such a nice change and it makes the kids truly love reading and listening to stories.
Other than that I have been using a few different intervention systems for my guided reading instruction such as LLI (Fountas and Pinell), and the school wide Intervention system for phonics (also DSC) SIPPS. Our interventions require all of our students to read daily, practice sight words, phonics, and writing. I love that it incorporates writing even for my students reading at a Level A or 1. It's a great opportunity to have structured writing time where I can monitor their writing in small groups.
Enough with the programs we use, the real reasons I wanted to write this post it to show you the additional support I am using with my children in centers. It's so important but challenging to find activities that can be differentiated easily for each group, done independently, are rigorous, and engaging enough for the children to actually enjoy and learn. I definitely don't have my centers perfected, but each year they are greatly improving and I think I found a system that I really like. It allows me to differentiate and it ties in perfectly with my Differentiated Spelling Instruction for the year! (I'll write more about that later)
I rotate my center activities frequently and have been trying a new system so I can differentiate their centers to meet their current needs and abilities. Every day they do guided reading with me and sight word activities (which can be seen and purchased here). Three or four out of the 5 days they do a word work activity (can be purchased by clicking the picture above). On a word work "off day"they have the option of listening center, media center check out, writing center, computers/iPad, or reading in our class library. These get rotated out so they it's not repetitive.
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I chose 3 - 4 "word work"centers and put them in a colored envelope to match their center's groups. Each group will do all of the word work activities throughout the week, but only one group does that specific word work activity a day. This allows me to use different spelling patterns/words that match their current abilities. For example, next week we're doing a picture/word sort for short vowels, beginning sounds, and matching capital letters to lower case letters. This way ALL of my students do a "picture/word sort activity"but it meets their needs instead of being 1 activity across the board.
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Each group has a "black holder" that keeps their center's work folders, word work holder, and reader's response journals. They keep these at their group tables to minimize movement throughout the class during center time.
One thing I love about the word work centers other than the differentiation it allows, is that all of the activities are super interactive. My kids LOVE making their spelling words into necklaces, and building words with tiles or by rolling a dice.
Their reader's response journals directly correlate to a book we read during making meaning, our vocabulary instruction, or a book they read in IDR (Independent Reading). I emphasize using the text to support their answers and love their responses! I would say they are 95% independent in this center, but working in groups greatly eliminates teacher interventions.
One activity they can do in writing center is the "Sticker Story". They choose 3 stickers and create a story from that. I also allow them to write letter, send "post cards, free write or practice handwriting.
Listening center is pretty relaxed, I used to require a response sheet but I feel like I really just want my children's focus to be on enjoying the story and hearing a fluent reader, so I allow them to listen to more than one book instead of focusing on their response sheet.
Computers/iPad there are obviously a zillion website resources. My kids use bookflix.com or MyOn.com (a reading intervention program). My main focus is having them interact with engaging text, and listen to fluent readers. Sometimes I will let them get on other reading websites, but it's not my preference because a lot of time they get on things that aren't focused on the skills they need to practice, it's just songs or games they know and like.
I chose 3 - 4 "word work"centers and put them in a colored envelope to match their center's groups. Each group will do all of the word work activities throughout the week, but only one group does that specific word work activity a day. This allows me to use different spelling patterns/words that match their current abilities. For example, next week we're doing a picture/word sort for short vowels, beginning sounds, and matching capital letters to lower case letters. This way ALL of my students do a "picture/word sort activity"but it meets their needs instead of being 1 activity across the board.
Each group has a "black holder" that keeps their center's work folders, word work holder, and reader's response journals. They keep these at their group tables to minimize movement throughout the class during center time.
One thing I love about the word work centers other than the differentiation it allows, is that all of the activities are super interactive. My kids LOVE making their spelling words into necklaces, and building words with tiles or by rolling a dice.
Their reader's response journals directly correlate to a book we read during making meaning, our vocabulary instruction, or a book they read in IDR (Independent Reading). I emphasize using the text to support their answers and love their responses! I would say they are 95% independent in this center, but working in groups greatly eliminates teacher interventions.
Listening center is pretty relaxed, I used to require a response sheet but I feel like I really just want my children's focus to be on enjoying the story and hearing a fluent reader, so I allow them to listen to more than one book instead of focusing on their response sheet.
Computers/iPad there are obviously a zillion website resources. My kids use bookflix.com or MyOn.com (a reading intervention program). My main focus is having them interact with engaging text, and listen to fluent readers. Sometimes I will let them get on other reading websites, but it's not my preference because a lot of time they get on things that aren't focused on the skills they need to practice, it's just songs or games they know and like.
I hope this helps give you some new ideas for your literacy center/reading block! I love the way it's going so far this year. If you have any questions please post below!
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