literacy station

Guided Reading and Literacy Learning Stations Part 5: The Flexible System

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by Cindy Elkins, OK Math and Reading Lady

In part 4, I discussed the most common literacy station organization system – what I call the Rotation System. This week I will focus on one I refer to as the Flexible System. After reading this article, you should see why I gave it that name. Many of the points I made in the previous post about Organization, Management, and Behavior still apply to this Flexible System. I know several teachers who switched to this system and absolutely love it. Read on . . .

Flexible Station System:

  • Students can start out at their desks with a “must do” assignment of your choice. This provides a staggered start to center time. Then as they finish, they go to a station of their choice – but they can only visit it once a week. They stay at the station until it is complete, then go to another as time allows. The student chooses from whatever is open at the time. The idea is to complete as many stations as possible during the week.
  • Students can work independently, in pairs, or small groups of up to 3-4 students. They can work with the same or different students each day.
  • Teacher calls their small group for instruction daily from wherever they might be in the room. For example, if you call Group A – they might be at different locations in the room. They come to you for their lesson and return to their work station when you are finished with them. You can determine the amount of time you need to spend with each group since your time is also flexible.

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Guided Reading and Literacy Learning Stations Part 4: The Rotation System

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by C. Elkins, OK Math and Reading Lady

So you have established a respectful classroom community, practiced procedures and expectations for independent work stations, assessed your students, and decided on how to group them. Now you are ready to implement your literacy learning stations – but how? In this Part 4,  I will focus on the rotation system. In Part 5, I will focus on a more flexible system.

A successful rotation system means your students are divided into groups, and each group rotates to a different learning station at a set time (usually 15-20 minutes, longer for intermediate). The teacher table is one of the learning stations. Others can be computers, listening, silent or partner reading, letter or word work, writing, comprehension, etc. See my Literacy Station Ideas pdf. In this article, I will focus on organization, management, behavior concerns, and pros / cons of the rotation system. Continue reading →

Guided Reading and Literacy Learning Stations Part 3: Stations and Grouping

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by C. Elkins, OK Math and Reading Lady

This is part 3 in my series about Guided Reading and Literacy Learning Stations. In Part 2 I focused on creating a classroom community and making preparations for stations by going over procedures in depth – introducing 1 or 2 at a time.

Today I will focus on two other steps: 1) Deciding on what types of stations would be beneficial, and 2) Deciding on how you will be grouping  your students for small group teacher instruction.

Stations should:

  1. Be differentiated and engaging to allow for different abilities and learning styles.
  2. Have signs and anchor charts for each one. The anchor charts serve a dual purpose: To introduce your expectations of their behavior and procedures for the station, and to remind students while actually working at the station.
  3. Address the 5 areas of literacy: Phonemic Awareness (K-2), Phonics, Vocabulary, Comprehension, and Fluency.

Click on the link for my list of Literacy Stations Ideas. While I always advise teachers to start easy and begin with activities that require little preparation (listening center, smartboard, boxed activities, computer station), I hope you will gradually work toward more rigorous, differentiated activities that suit the learning needs of your students.

One station I think is critical is a silent reading / library / magic carpet reading center. Students need to practice the strategies you have been teaching. Here are my suggestions on having an organized classroom library. Continue reading →

Literacy Stations

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by Cindy Elkins, OK Math and Reading Lady

What is the purpose of having literacy work stations in your classroom? If you answered, “To provide meaningful, engaging, rigorous, differentiated opportunities for students to learn” then you are on the right track!! Aside from the task of deciding on the literacy station procedures and routines you want for your classroom is the problem of actually providing and organizing those quality activities.

Literacy Station Activity

Literacy Station Activity

I know most of you regularly visit the TPT store and Pinterest for ideas.  There are a TON of great things out there. However, not everyone has a color printer or has the means to drain their bank account to pay for these items.

So, here is a resource I think you will like which is FREE, does not require a color printer, and addresses pretty much every literacy skill you need to teach and/or provide practice for (KG-5th grade). It is the Florida Center for Reading Research (www.fcrr.org). Click on this link: Student center activities which takes you directly to the K-5 reading center activities page.  The following are available — all for FREE!!

  • Sections clearly labeled Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, and Comprehension — with multiple activities for each sub-skill
  • One page overview for each activity (objective, materials list, and directions with illustration showing the activity in use)
  • Flexibility options to use materials as a teaching tool and/or as a practice or review activity

These are some of the types of activities:

  • Tons of letter and picture cards for sorting, matching, pocket charts, concentration, rhyming, word work, etc.
  • Game boards
  • Recording sheets – to record results of activities when appropriate
  • Graphic organizers – especially for grades 3 and up. These can be used with any book.

A teacher’s guide is also available with more detailed directions, background information, and literacy station organizational ideas.

I also bookmarked this site in my Resources section (top of the blog in the black band) should you need to refer to this site often. Enjoy!!! Let us know about your favorite FCRR activity or how you are using them in your classroom! Just click on the comment speech bubble.