What Comes Before and After Literacy Centers? Part 3 of a 3 Part Series
Welcome to our third post on Literacy Centers!
If you’ve made it this far, you’re almost an expert!
We are so excited that you have found the value of implementing Literacy Centers in your classroom!
We truly believe that this is where good teaching happens!
Students need exposure to a standard through different modes of learning. Literacy Centers check off both of those boxes… and more! We believe that this is what our students have been missing all along!
In this blog post, you will learn about the ideal sequence to teaching a standard!
Let’s get goin’!
Above, you can see the ideal sequence for teaching a standard. We gave the example of teaching Idioms. This is a common standard that everyone teaches, so the idea can be applied to whatever you are teaching. As you can see, students are given a plethora of activities to expose them to the standard! They have multiple chances at accessing the standard and you have a variety of assessment tools to monitor their proficiency along the way!
This is what we have implemented in our classroom this year, and we can honestly say that we have had the biggest growth that we have ever had before. Our students are performing at a level they have never reached before… and guess what?
THEY ARE HAVING FUN!
AND EVEN BETTER… SO ARE WE!
When we first introduce a standard,
we start with our “Week Long Lessons.”
Day 1 starts with having students take notes on the standard and creating an Anchor Chart in their Interactive Reader’s Notebook. This provides a point of reference for later questions. It is also an excellent tool for parents to see what their child is learning and how to help them at home. Day 2 gives students more practice by providing them with a Practice Page. These practice pages are not just a worksheet! Students usually have a maze, ti-tac-toe game or other engaging activity in order to practice the standard. Throughout the week, students also complete a foldable, which is placed inside their Interactive Reader’s Notebook. Students also use sentence frames while they are reading their Independent Reading book. A sample sentence frame would be, “Idiom Alert on p. ____! The idiom is ____,” or “A great idiom for today’s reading would be ______.” These sentence frames are also applied to our class Read Aloud. This is great for Modeling and Teacher Think Alouds! Another activity included in our “Week Long Lessons” are JOT ideas. “JOTs” are a quick jot about the standard. Our JOTS include an art activity with a short writing piece applying the standard. There are two JOT ideas included. There is an assessment included in our “Week Long Lessons,” but we save the assessment for the very end… after our Literacy Centers and Task Card Activity Bundles.
Literacy Centers come next and they are our favorite! Literacy Centers allow students to use what they learned in the “Week Long Lessons.” Students have a variety of opportunities to master the standard! We have already posted two blog posts all about them, so check them out by clicking here for Post #1 and here for Post #2!
After Literacy Centers comes “Task Card Activity Bundles!”
These task cards are not just your typical task cards!
We love the differentiation that is included. From the Literacy Centers, you will get enough documentation to group students accordingly. We love using the Task Card Activity Bundle for Intervention! We rotate students into three groups. Each teacher uses the Task Card Activity Bundle at a different level. The Proficient group uses the enrichment, the Basic group uses the task cards in a larger group setting and the Below Basic group uses the task cards in small groups with a teacher, or assistant, at each group. The differentiation included is sufficient for all three categories of students.
The best part of all three of these tools is that they are “Print and Go!” The work has been done for you! It’s as easy as sending it out to the printers, or doing the printing yourself at school. None of the activities require additional materials. It’s about as easy as it get at a thoroughness and quality that will have your students begging for more! You will stand out from the rest with your test scores and your level of differentiated instruction!
Here is a sample of what this post has been about…
Click the above images to check them out in our store! Thanks for joining us on this blog post series! If you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear from you in the Comments below!
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2 Comments
I am very excited to use this system in my own classroom. I just had a question on the time you spend teaching the week long lessons, reading stations, and task card practice. Approximately how many weeks to you take to practice with each skill? Do you do some of 3 parts simultaneously? Just trying to get a feel for the structure and time frame you use to implement all of the instruction and practice. Thank you!!
2 Comments
I am very excited to use this system in my own classroom. I just had a question on the time you spend teaching the week long lessons, reading stations, and task card practice. Approximately how many weeks to you take to practice with each skill? Do you do some of 3 parts simultaneously? Just trying to get a feel for the structure and time frame you use to implement all of the instruction and practice.
Thank you!!
We teach 4 main standards each month. Check out this blog post: https://therigorousowl.com/year-long-plans-teach-every-standard/
Week 1: Week Long Lessons
Week 2: Lit Centers
Week 3: Task Cards/ Small Group Instruction
Week 4: Review/ Assessment