Literacy Centres are an opportunity for students to practice skills and consolidate learning. They are NOT busy work.
For a brief overview of centres please view our PDF slideshow developed and presented by Literacy Improvement Project Teachers Sarah Goodman, Linda Charko, and Sue Pasian.
Practical Literacy Centres: PDF Slide Show
Goals for Literacy Centers
- To give children a chance to make their own choices.
- To allow children to work at their own rate of speed.
- To provide a wide variety of activities for the children to complete.
- To include both small group activities and individual activities.
- To provide activities that meet the varying abilities of the students.
- To give children a chance to work independently.
- To encourage children to try new things.
Literacy Groups
It is important to plan for flexible literacy groupings. I highly recommend groups of 2-3 students maximum. This allows for students to become cooperative amongst themselves in their group, and may eliminate disruptive behaviour.
Duration of Literacy Centers
Depending on the number of students, try to rotate students to different literacy centers every 20-30 minutes. A typical Literacy Center Day is blocked for an hour and a half. Rotate the groups to different activities using a Literacy Center Management Board or pocket chart. This works quite well.
Types of Literacy Centres
Think carefully about the centres you are choosing. They need to be practical where students can Practice and Consolidate skills. However, within your centres, you can tier your learning and have certain students working above and/or below target, based on the makeup of the group.
Before & After Literacy Centres
Before your centres start for the day, make sure to explicitly state to the students what is expected of them that day. It would be great to have children role-play while the rest of the group observes.
After your centres are completed for the day Sharing Time provides students with the opportunity to reflect on what they’ve done that day and for their learning to go deeper. Gather students and lead a short, focused discussion about what they did and learned in the work stations. This will also help you to find out what activity worked or didn't work. You might find it useful to have one specific question to reflect on each day. You might do a 1-2-3 :
- Tell me one thing that went well
- Tell me one thing that didn’t go well
Literacy Centre Assessment
Rubrics - self and/or peer
- Tracking forms
- Observation
- Debrief/Sharing/Reflection
Centre Folders - for collecting and organizing centre work which is easily accessed by student and teacher. Stapling a tracking sheet to the front makes it easy for the student to see where he is at and for the teacher to assess student responsibility and choices.
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