Hi y’all- here is our first content post for our course!
One of the things I heard in all of your introductory materials is that you love centers, your students love centers but it’s occasionally overwhelming to keep up with, and you want to make sure you’re spending your time on the most impactful things. I so agree, and know that centers can be an overwhelming beast of a thing if not managed on the teacher level in an ongoing way. I distinctly remember sitting in the middle of my classroom library- now Natalie’s classroom! love! – on a Saturday morning, with all 22 book boxes spilled out around me. I was probably crying, and trying to stop Jackson from eating crayons. Sound familiar? Below are some quick tips and strategies that will not only ensure the basics are up and going in your classroom, but also gives you some options for sustainable systems.
To get us started, I really value scholarship and learning from those who walked before us. I found this great excerpt from a (huge) study about quality elementary education. Nothing was super surprising to me, and probably won’t be to you, but I think it’s a good reminder and strong framing for the rest of the post: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/six-ts-effective-elementary-literacy-instruction. I would love for all of you to read through, and include some reflections in your questions and responses next week.
With the Six T’s in mind, onto our work!
First off, do you have absolutely great data that holistically represents your students as readers? The DRA2 and Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System (BAS) are probably the best options to get your students’ reading levels. It’s really difficult to create meaningful, responsive centers without their reading levels, so just in case you don’t have that…prioritize assessing right now!
If you do have your students’ accurate reading levels, do you have a center that addresses each piece of what we call “the literacy rope?” To read, students need:
1. vocabulary: not only words I know and can use in my writing, but strategies to solve for unknown words
2. fluency: I can read at an appropriate rate and expression for my reading level
3. decoding: I have word attack strategies to break down words I don’t know, relying on what I do know about language
4. phonics and phonemic awareness: I can manipulate, break apart, put back together words. The easiest way to remember it is that phonics you need to see- “take off the “M” in man, and write what’s left.” Phonemic awareness you can do in the dark- “I’m going to say the word “man.” if you delete the mmmm sound, what’s left?”
5. writing: I can put my thoughts and feelings on paper, working through process and genre
6. comprehension: I understand what I’m reading, and can apply it in numerous scenarios
What these centers look like can vary greatly, but students need to be practicing these skills in centers time. Do you have at least one center that addresses the pieces of the literacy rope? If not, what are you missing? Let me know and I can help you brainstorm!
If you have solid student-level data you trust, and at least one center that addresses the most important reading skills, we can start thinking about sustainable systems. One of the things I heard from a few of you is that you spend so much time introducing a new center, it cuts into instructional time. Or, students are struggling to truly internalize what to do at each center, so your instruction is being interrupted. My best piece of advice is to choose centers where what students are doing stays the same, just the content changes. An example of this could be: that cute center with different word families written on spoons and students add the first or last letter? That’s really easy to sustain, because you can just add in more challenging word families, but what kids are actually remembering to do stays the same. Your writing center can be the same: students choose a topic from their heart map or paint sticks with topics on them, work through the writing process and get to “publish” with a fancy pencil on Friday. Again, what kids are doing stays the same, but the skills can change. There’s a lot of research that shows why this works- unscientifically, baby brains rely on routines and pre-existing structures to add new knowledge, so we can help our kids out by keeping as much the same as possible. If you do need totally new centers, the most effective thing I’ve found is to be as specific as possible (searching “fluency activities for level E readers” is way better than “fun literacy activities for centers”), and set a timer! One episode of The Mindy Project is usually my limit 🙂 Also, try not to introduce more than 1-2 new centers per week.
The very best resource I’ve found for centers (even better than Pinterest!) is the Florida Center for Reading Research: fcrr.org. They organize all of their pre-made centers by part of the literacy rope, and by reading level-ish. They include the template for their centers, so you can just add in new words, sounds, word families, etc. It’s AMAZING.
Alright friends, this is all I have for you for this week. Please comment, reply to one another, reach out to your MTLD and to myself with specific questions. Can’t wait to hear from you!
sodakwelovecenters 
My school uses the Dibels test and the MAP test to figure out student reading levels. I sort of went off on my own and tried to match up their reading levels according to those tests to fit in with the guided reading a-z level system. I think that I pretty much have each student tracked to where they are now. In our school, with the way we teach right now, I have all students that fell at the strategic level in reading (which is usually around beginning of 1st to middle of 1st). Since our classrooms are set up in this way it makes it a little easier to group my students since they all land at around the same reading level.
I recently restructured my entire reading block and cutting out almost all time on things that could take 5 minutes I was left with 3 stations. I think that my guided reading brings in vocabulary, fluency, decoding, and comprehension. There are days that I alternate and do a “guided writing” station where we have really just focused on capitalization and punctuation so far. My second station alternates between read to self and listen to read where they have to draw a picture and write about their story afterwards. My last station is their word work, which hits on phonics and phonemic awareness.
All that being said, I don’t feel like I am getting enough vocabulary and writing in during my centers.
I really enjoyed that article, but at the same time it made me a little sad. I find myself really struggling to try and step away from the one-size-fits all model because in order to keep up with the other two second grade teachers I have to be on certain books on certain days. I am doing a lot better this year because I cut read aloud down quite a bit and have created more time for stations. However, I still wish I had enough time to do everything that my students need.
I’m not entirely sure what we were supposed to all post on here so I hope this is okay!!
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I really like your passport system and I am going to copy it….Now my students can make fun of me for copying another thing you do.
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I definitely agree with you that keeping up with other teachers in your grade level is difficult. It is going to be extremely hard for first grade when we mix up our kids, because Becky FLIES through material.
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I really enjoyed the article. It was a nice reminder, and I like to see the research backing up their opinions. We have a PD person who comes in and talks about “research shows” but then she never gives us the research sources. I like, too, learning from exemplar classrooms, and I appreciate that the article came from classrooms that were working with poor children and diverse children. It always frustrates me when I’m given ideas, but they come from schools that aren’t like mine.
Through the PD we just had in McLaughlin and this post, I was inspired to change around some of my stations to include those pieces of the “literacy rope.” I think I have all the elements, but I’m not sure what the vocabulary part would look like.
I’m definitely going to try to keep the same themes at my stations, but just change little things, as to not take away too much from my students. I was just introduced to the FCRR, and I am OBSESSED! I love when I don’t have to reinvent the wheel!
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Amen about our PD. I also really like the theme idea for stations.
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I like the idea of keeping the centers the same, just changing the content.
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Hello!
I teach kindergarten at American Horse School in Allen. I’m fairly lucky because although I have 30 students, I also have 2 para professionals. This means my center time is almost entirely teacher-led….which maybe isn’t the point of centers, but it’s working really well. My centers are usually set up like this: 1. easy readers where students highlight words they know and practice reading 2. Math lesson 3. Word work-spelling, writing, beginning sounds…it changes, but the system is the same, worksheets in sheet protectors and 4. Reading independently, students have to fill out a simple reading reflection….title, draw their favorite part, and find 3 words they can read by themselves, or they listen to reading on Tumblebooks.
After reading that article and the comments above, I echo just about everything. I’m glad they used diverse, low SES students and that the research was reliable, rigorous and responsive. I think I will pass this one on to my principal.
I would like to create more activities with phonics, phonemic awareness and decoding….I think this would help my students become better readers. I want to create simple activities that can be re-used and aren’t just worksheets!
I have looked at the Florida website, months ago, but got so overwhelmed I quickly logged out. I think I will take a second look!
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Jeana, I have some stuff you can use for a phonics center!
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My students are assessed based on DRA (although my school got rid of our DRA kits – so silly!). I give them dolch sight word tests and then place them in fountas and pinnel-leveled books according to their dolch grade level and then adjust as necessary through running records assessments. my groups this year are currently a D group, F group, K group and an M group (which is basically end of the year 2nd grade!). I have such a wide-range of reading levels, but i love it because the high-level students really push and teach the struggling readers in cool ways. It’s been really awesome.
In my classroom, I have leveled books from B-P. All students have a big plastic ziplock with their level letter written on it as well as one letter above and below (i just write on the bags with a permanent marker). Students can take books out of the library according to the letters on their bag and I change the letters on their bag every time they advance at my back table. (this corresponds to the “text” part of the six t’s)
I definitely have centers for some of the literacy rope and work on the others at my back table, but i could really use help with some.
VOCABULARY: I have a vocabulary center where students either write sentences or make vocabulary four-squares (a paper folded in fours with: word, definition, sentence, and picture). our curriculum also has vocab cards with interactive questions on the back that my higher level students can complete independently). The words and cards change every week. I like this center, although it can be a challenge for struggling readers/writers.
FLUENCY: I have leveled fluency centers with sentence strips with dolch words for my struggling readers and then decodable readers on grade-level for my on-level, and then third grade decodable readers for my advanced students. Students use a one-minute egg timer to see how many words they can read and record 3-5 attempts on a sheet. I like this center, although it is tedious for my high-level readers to count all the words they can read in a minute.
DECODING: I teach this at my back table through guided reading and demonstration. Students have bookmarks with decoding strategies on them that they refer to at our back table and while doing read to self.
PHONICS AND PHONEMIC AWARENESS: We do word sorts on our promethean board with our words every week and also can do them on whiteboards/in notebooks during the “Word Work” center where students interact (word sorts, rainbow writing, blue consonants/red vowels, writing sentences and stories) with sight words and spelling words – activities stay the same and words change every week.
While our spelling words are focused on phonics patterns, I feel like I am really lacking in a center that is targeted just to phonics and phonemic awareness though. At my back table with my struggling readers, I have done guided readings with phonics decodables from reading A-Z and word sorts using those patterns. but they don’t necessarily have a center to practice this in on their own.
**I would love ideas for more centers in this area.**
WRITING: Definitely where I struggle the most. I teach (or attempt to teach) the writing lessons that accompany our curriculum. This week, it’s writing instructions to do something. This usually involves brainstorming and filling out a graphic organizer to put out ideas in order, drafting, and then revising/editing/publishing. I really struggle with teaching the revising/editing step though.
We do writing as a whole-class activity (usually ~20 minutes a day), but students are also welcome to work on their writing or free-write during reading centers. About 10 (out of 16) of my students actively choose to do writing on their own during centers (i really need to start holding conferences with them on their writing.i just haven’t found the time for that yet). For my struggling readers/writers who struggle with just getting one word on the page, we have been working on dolch word sentences puzzles where they cut and paste a sentence in order, write the sentence, illustrate it and then (try to) use the highlighted sight word in a sentence of their own.
**i would love more info on the writing topics on popsicle sticks that you mentioned above**
COMPREHENSION: Students fill out book reports for books that they read. this includes characters, setting, beginning, middle, and end. For more advanced readers, it also includes problem and solution and main idea and details (although we work on those comprehension strategies as a whole class, my struggling readers could not fill those out independently on a book report yet. we work on that at my back table)
**I would love more creative and project-based ideas for practicing and increasing comprehension**
In terms of the T’s mentioned in the article, i felt it useful to reflect on two of them in particular.
TIME:
in class, we start they day with a 5-10 writing in our journals (usually based on something going on in our lives or connected to the text we’ve been reading). We do 20-minute read aloud almost every day. Students do 15 minutes of read to self time during centers and 15 minutes of listen to reading where they follow along with leveled RAZ-Kids book. They also have 15 minutes at least at my back table for guided reading (i pull my lowest groups twice usually). We do 20 minutes of writing and students can choose to write for an additional 15 minutes during centers. At the end of the day, the whole class reads for 15-20 minutes silently at their desk while i pull students for extra practice, running records, or progress monitoring. We do read aloud, reading, and writing when we do social studies and science, but this is harder to measure as it is more sporadic and interspersed with lessons and sometimes video clips. If I add this up, it seems like at least 2 hours of our day, students are straight reading or writing. this doesn’t count time spent doing word work or fluency. i thought we were doing a lot, but actually this does not seem like much time when i write it all out!
TASKS:
**I would love to do more creative and project-based assignments** Aside from our writing assignments that last 1-2 weeks, all our curriculum is made up of short tasks to be completed within 5-20 minutes. Our curriculum has a workbook that focuses on phonics, grammar and reading comprehension. we are supposed to be using this, but it often feels like a waste of time, where my higher students easily get it and its not actually helping them learn, and its beyond my struggling readers who also don’t get anything from it because they are lacking other skills that need to be addressed first.
Anyways.. i apologize that this is a book. i didn’t realize how pumped i was to think and re-think about my literacy block. as a 3rd year/alum, it’s exciting to have a place to do this since i no longer work closely with an MTLD. i’m excited and happy to be a part of this blog!
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Last year, I tried to base my reading centers on The Daily Five: listen to reading, work on writing, word work, read to self, and read to partner. This year I’ve refined it a bit into four 15-minute (mostly teacher-led) centers: guided reading (with me), work on handwriting, word work (with my para), and listen to reading (raz-kids on computers). They run pretty smoothly, but I do wish there was more room for student choice. But I’m also kind of scared to shake up my system.
I liked what the article had to say about the “assign and assess” model that seems to be pretty prevalent in America’s public schools: “The truth is that ‘instruction’ of this nature is of little benefit to all but the few students who have already acquired a basic understanding of the strategy that is the focus of the lesson.”
I’ve been frustrated by curriculums that offer “definitions” but not strategies. Students know what the main idea is defined to be, but not how to find it.
FCCR’s been a good resource for me in setting up interventions. Fountas and Pinnell’s not bad. Our district is currently piloting the Reading Street curriculum, which I’m still on the fence about. On the one hand, resources! On the other hand, boxed…scripted…and not much in the way of differentiation or culturally responsive teaching.
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My school uses MAP and DIBELS. I mostly focus on using the DIBELS data because I feel that it gives me a lot more information than the MAP provides. I have my class split in half, where the first 45 minutes is my intervention time and the second 45 minutes is left for core instruction. During my intervention time, students are either reading to self, reading to someone or listening to reading while I pull small groups to work on specific literacy skills they struggled on when taking the DIBELS. I would like to get materials together to give to my students while they are independently working in order to increase accountability on their part.
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So I think I misunderstood what we were supposed to comment on, so I shall try again!
The students do Accelerated Reader, where they have their own “ZPD” levels that allows them to read books that are at an appropriate level for them level. After each book, they take a comprehension test that matches each book.
In the classroom, there we have 4 centers
(fluency/comprehension, phonics and phonemic awareness, writing, and spelling).
1. vocabulary: We do vocabulary each week but not in centers. I will try and apply this in centers and give them strategies to find out what a vocabulary word means.
2. fluency: Reading center where they read books at their ZPD level and take quizzes. Each quiz gives them points and they get closer to reaching their goal.
3. decoding: Can put this into effect. Will need help.
4. phonics and phonemic awareness: We do this in small groups and then I put the activity into the center.
5. writing: Writing prompts and free write.
6. comprehension: This is applied in the fluency center.
Thank you for the ideas and resources!!
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From the article I wonder what sort of system is in place to monitor/pinpoint each student’s progress and what they need to be successful? In other words, is this a paper system, is this a separate grade book for each student/group, and how do you put these kinds of grades in a computer system that is set up for all students to be included in each and every assignment?
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