In first grade, a big portion of our morning is spent in Literacy Centers. A literacy center is an area or station designed for a specific learning purpose. It is designed to provide appropriate materials to help students work independently or with partners or small groups to meet literacy goals. Our classroom provides a variety of centers that all focus on different aspects of literacy. Below are pictures of some of our centers and an explanation of what we are doing!
The students above are at our hands on learning stations which is a simple board game focused around the short vowel sounds and the CVC word pattern we learned about this week. The game center is always changing as we focus on different word families and spelling patterns. The games provide the students an opportunity to practice and review commonly used words and vowel sounds, helping with reading and decoding trickier words.
This group of students are working on their sight word packets. In addition to the students practicing at home, the children have an opportunity to further their sight word knowledge at school. The students complete the daily word page which has them writing, creating, picking out the word in a group of words, writing it, and using it in a sentence!
They are also given the choice of independent reading in our cozy reading corner! Prior to independent reading, they are given the opportunity to “book shop” and explore the variety of books in our library. Students are taught how to pick “just right books” for them but are also encouraged to pick out a few “just for fun” readers. I also provide teacher selected books in their book boxes to make sure that there are books appropriate for their reading level.
The writing center is one of our most popular centers (despite what the picture is shows!) and it is a great way for children to explore literacy beyond reading books. At the writing center, children are instructed to write, write, write! However, it is their choice as to what they want to write. Many students choose to write letters to one another and others are having fun writing cards and lists of things to do! After starting our Writers Workshop unit, the kids are beginning to explore book making and writing their own stories.
This week, we began using Raz-Kids on our personal devices and the kids have had fun exploring this option. Raz Kids is a great resource for reading books that are on their reading level. Raz Kids allows the students to listen to the story, read the story, and then complete a comprehension piece to show their understanding of what they read.
Other center choices that are not pictured above include word work, a listening center, and a teacher guided reading group.
Word work provides multi-sensory activities for manipulating, saying, and writing words and individual sounds in words. Our word work is focused around the spelling pattern that we are learning that week.
Our listening center is an opportunity for students to listen to a story though a safe, online story portal. After choosing their story on the iPad, they scan the provided QR code, which automatically directs them to the story. After listening to the story, the student answers a question related to the story, working on their comprehension skills.
Guided Reading offers students intentional reading instruction with texts that are just a little too hard! The first 1-2 minutes of our reading group will be spent looking at sight words in the selected text. We practice saying, writing, and applying the words. I next move on to introducing the book. This is not a summary of the book, but instead a short, and sweet overview of it. If a book is full of content vocabulary, this is the time that we look at those words and identify them, to ease the reading process. The next 6-7 minutes or so are spent having the students read the book aloud (in a whisper or quiet voice). As students are reading, I am checking in with them individually. During this time I listen to students read, prompt them for strategies, ask questions, and provide support. Since these are instructional texts, they are meant to be slightly difficult and students will need support. After reading, we discuss the book and work on comprehension aspects, as well as spend a few minutes in Word Work. Often this is just pulling patterns found in our texts.
As mentioned in the beginning, Literacy Centers take up a good portion of our morning, but I can always count on authentic learning to be happening when the children are engaged in these activities!
