Literacy Center Organization

Hi everyone!  It's Jennie from JD's Rockin' Readers!  Are you as overwhelmed with school right now as I am?  This time of the year is just crazy!  We are finishing assessments this week and then grade cards go home next week.  Then, it's Parent Teacher Conferences right before Turkey Day!  I am always ready for Thanksgiving Break more than any other break we get throughout the year (except summer of course). 

Today, I am going to share with you how I run my Literacy Centers so that I can work with my Guided Reading groups.  

First off, my teaching partner, Mrs. Kruse, and I do Center Time together.  This picture is from my classroom looking into her classroom. We have sliding doors that we open each day during this time.  Our center block usually lasts between 45 minutes to an hour.  I try to get in 2 or 3 Guided Reading Lessons during this time.

WE OPEN THE CLASSROOM SLIDING DOORS

ROTATION BOARD

We do three center rotations a day.  We each have four different groups.  All of my groups are a mix of ability levels.  We regulate the time that the students spend at each center activity.  It is usually between 15 and 20 minutes.  Our Listening Center is our guide for how long they are at each center.  We usually put two books at the Listening Center that last about 12-15  minutes total and when that group is finished, then we switch by ringing a bell.  Students know to switch to their next center unless they have not finished their first center.  If they haven't finished, they must finish and then go on to the next center.

LISTENING CENTER

This is our Listening Center.  We have the same cards out there as we do on our rotation board.  We use arrows to tell who is in charge of running the center that day.  We have our Listening Center set up  in the hallway right outside of our classroom.  It's nice because we can have them listen to the stories without headphones and Mrs. Kruse can still see their every move from her Guided Reading table.

We do a mix of Daily 5 and regular Literacy Centers.  For our Work On Writing center, we just have the students get their Writing Workshop folder out and they get extra time that day to work on whatever writing they are doing during Writing Workshop.  

WORD WORK, SPELLING WORDS, AND SIGHT WORDS

These centers are kept in Mrs. Kruse's room.  All of the materials needed for these centers are in this storage container.  We usually have two different options for Spelling Words and Sight Words.  They have a list of their spelling words in their Center Folder to use (this is also where we put any paper/pencil work for the week).  At the end of the week, I take a quick glance to make sure they are completing their work.  I staple it together and send it home.  Our weekly sight words are on a pocket chart in the classroom for them to use as a reference when they go to the Sight Word center.  Our Word Work center is usually an activity that helps the students practice the phonics skill that we are working on that week.  For example, this week we are doing a WH write the room activity.  This also goes along with the skill on our spelling test this week.

POETRY CENTER

The Poetry Center is kept in my room.  The poem that we use each week is one that we have read everyday the week prior to putting it into the center.  The students are very familiar with the poem and can read it on their own.  They put the poems into their Poetry Notebook and have some sort of activity to go with it.  (Sometimes we have parent helpers help with this center).  Most of the poems I use come from Jane Loretz.  She has MANY different Interactive Poetry Centers for sale in her store.

iPADS

We also have an iPad center.  At this center, the students are allowed to go to different reading apps that we have on the iPads.  Our ultimate goal is to have them using and reading books from their Raz-Kids account- but it isn't set up yet:(  It should be very soon though!  I can't wait for them to be able to be reading books at their level during this time.

During our Read to Self time, students are allowed to choose whose room they want to go and read in.  We built up our stamina at the beginning of the year and they do a nice job with getting their browsing box and reading to themselves.

During our Read to Someone time, students meet in the middle of the two rooms (where the doors open) and raise their hand.  This means they are looking for a partner to read with.  We allow students to read with another student from either room.

Here are some fun Sound/Letter Boxes that you can use during your Guided Reading Lessons!

I LOVE having this time to work with my kiddos at their reading level.  We can get so much accomplished during this time by using The Ultimate Guided Reading Toolkit that I made.  It makes planning a breeze and the activities are fun and effective:)  

If you are interested in purchasing The Ultimate Guided Reading Toolkit, try to get your school to purchase it by using this FREE download explaining the product to your principal.  It also includes directions on how to purchase with a School Purchase Order.  Multiple licenses are at a reduced cost.  What do you have to lose??  

I'm sure I haven't covered everything, but I know I am always interested in how others set up their room and their Literacy Centers.  I am happy to answer any other questions that you might have:)

The Importance of Text Evidence with Guest Blogger Colleen

We, at Literacy Land, are excited to announce our first guest blogger, Colleen from Literacy Loving Gals.  She brings you some awesome ideas for getting students to use text evidence.  So, sit back, drink your coffee, and enjoy!

Hello Adventures in Literacy Land friends!  This is Colleen from Literacy Loving Gals.  I'm a reading specialist in a K-5 building, but mostly work with 2nd and 3rd graders.  I am excited to be here to share a few activities I do to get my students using textual evidence when responding to their reading.

As we all know, the Common Core State Standards declare students should be able to *read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it* as well as *cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text*.  That may be very difficult for students to do.  The majority of struggling readers and writers in my RtI groups often respond to their reading with brief, fragmented statements without text evidence supporting their thoughts.  Getting them to support an analysis of their reading with textual evidence takes much EXPLICIT guidance before they are able to be successful on an independent level.  

Students are not able to answer questions purely based off of their prior knowledge or personal experience.  Making personal connections to the text is still important, however, text-to-self connections are no longer a focus when responding to reading.  Students need to stay within the four corners of the text.  They need to carefully read and answer questions only referring explicitly to the text.  When discussing texts with my students, I pre-plan the direction I'd like to take them.  Under the proverbial umbrella of text-dependent evidence falls questions that can 1.) get to the general understanding or gist of the text 2.) be literal, but must also involve evaluation, synthesis and analysis and 3.) focus on particular vocabulary words, sentences, paragraphs, events and themes.  

When planning lessons to get my students to think more concretely about their reading, I often turn to K-2 Chart Sense: Common Sense Charts to Teach K-2 Informational Text and Literature and Chart Sense: Common Sense Charts to Teach 3-8 Informational Text and Literature.  I purchased these books at the tail end of last year and have not regretted it!  These books are fabulous and can really help guide teachers in implementing anchor chart visuals for students that encompass every reading standard.  Yes, anchor chart ideas for every Common Core reading standard, both informational text and literature, is addressed in these books!  Wow, right?

Below are some of the tools my students use, a text-evidence chart example taken directly from Chart Sense, pictures of my students using the chart and a brief description of the procedures I use with them. 

Behold the power of "Text-Evidence Detective Tools"! 

After much discussion, the students were asked to become *Text-Evidence Detectives*.  "Prove it with text evidence!" was a phrase they heard me say over and over again.   I gave them eye-lighters and magnifying glasses to locate the evidence for the first few go-arounds to get them excited for the hunt. ;)

For this particular activity, the students orally explained their thoughts and located text evidence to support them.  Because they were busy with the eye-lighters and magnifying glasses during this activity, I wrote their responses onto Post-It notes for the students to place on the chart.  Each day, we'd recap the previous day's notes as a review.  We'd then continue with our next text, using the previous day's notes as a reminder.  The various colored Post-It notes represent three texts read and discussed throughout the week. 

Since I work primarily with the texts in Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention kits which contain series of books, I also created anchor charts dedicated to the series' characters we often read about.  Some of the series within the F&P LLI kits include Moosling, Froggy, Fox Family and the Fix-It Family.  For this post, I chose to use our Moosling anchor chart as an example.

Since I can't claim to be an artist, I photocopied the cover of a Moosling book to place in the center of blank chart paper.  I then put "Moosling is..." and "Prove it with text-evidence!" at the top of the chart.   Easy enough, right? :)  Then, using a character trait poster, the students discussed possible traits Moosling possesses in the texts we've read thus far.  The students were given a few pre-read titles in the series to locate text evidence to support Moosling's traits.  They were responsible for writing down their evidence on the Post-It notes for this activity, so no "eye-lighters" or magnifying glasses were used during this part.  The students had a great time with this.  They took their job as "Text-Evidence Detectives" very seriously and were quite successful with it! :)  

After much guided practice my students were ready to test their skills independently!  For independent practice of citing textual evidence, I created a simple graphic organizer for my students to use, as well as a prompt poster for them to reference when responding to their reading.  You can see them in action below!

Student using the Textual Evidence Sentence Starters poster below
for her written response...

I created the organizer to mimic what we were doing together in a small group on the large chart paper, so it correlated with what they had been practicing.  My graphic organizer and prompt poster are FREEBIES, if you'd like to download them from my TPT store.  

My product includes black & white as well as color versions of both the graphic organizer and prompt poster.  I know teachers aren't always able to print in color. :)  

So, there you have it...a few simple and easy-to-implement ideas for your classroom to get students thinking inside the four corners of the text.  What are some ways you get students thinking about and citing from the text? 

Thanks for stopping by Adventures in Literacy Land!  We'd love to hear from you.  Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comment section below. 

Enjoy your day,

Giving Students Choices

Hello Teacher Friends!  This is Deniece from This Little Piggy Reads.  I had such a busy beginning of the school year that my own blog has been silent and unfortunately I felt so overwhelmed that I haven't posted on Literacy Land since summer.

 For the first time ever, the "busy" of the beginning of the school year wasn't my own, but My Girl began Kindergarten and that has completely taken over our home life.  I'm just now taking a breath.

Today I want to discuss giving students a choice in the classroom.  I teach a GT pull-out program and my students like having a choice just as much as reluctant readers do.  Choice also seems to give them a feeling of being "grown up".

I'm sharing an example that I used in my own classroom.  My mini-lesson was Asking Questions.  I began by choosing 5 different short non-fiction passages. Based on the passage, I posted an "I" statement.

Students put their names on post-it notes and attached it to the statement that they identified with the most.

Their readings were inside a folder marked 1-5 and once the students got into their groups, I passed out the folders and let the groups read the passages and write questions that would spark new learning.  Finally, my students presented their questions to the class.  I must add that since every group had a different passage, the audience was engaged and listened closely to the presentation. 

 

Choice Menu's don't have to be the only way you give student's choices. What is one way you give choices in your classroom?

Blog With Us!

Have you dreamed of blogging in Literacy Land?  I am sure you have but don't know how!  Now is your chance!

We are looking for a few literacy loving bloggers who would like to guest blog or even join our team!

A few things to consider when choosing to guest blog with us.

1.  If you would like to become a part our our team, this is your application.  If you just want to guest post, great!

2.  You don't have to be a reading specialist to join ~ you just have to have a passion for teaching reading!

3. The post must be about something literacy related.

4.  No product posts!  Freebies are fine, but we don't want to advertise products and want to have good quality posts for our readers.

If you have any questions, please email Andrea at readerstars@gmail.com!  She will get back to you as soon as possible!

Click {here} or on the image above to fill out the form to join us.  It is also on the sidebar.

We look forward to working with you!

November Book Ideas

This is Wendy from Ms. D's Literacy Lab and I am here today to share with you a few books about gratitude during Thanksgiving. For me, each and every day is a moment to be thankful for what we have and on this note, I hope to read a few of these to my students in the coming days.

 Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting shows the life of a father and son as they move from terminal to terminal in the airport. The airport is their home. When the boy discovers a small bird trapped inside the terminal one day, he notices many things about his own life. This text will bring about a lively discussion among students especially if you have a student body with students living in hotels, shelters, in a room with siblings or multiple generations of families. I love the sensitive way that Bunting captures this topic.

 A Day's Work by Eve Bunting shows us the importance of pride and work even in the most simplest of tasks. The grandfather longs to be helpful and his grandson takes him and helps him gets a job as a gardener. The reviews show this is a book created and illustrated as though it took place in Maine. I love the softness of Ronald Himler's illustrations and the way that Bunting touches on the understandings between a grandson and grandfather.  

 The setting is the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. for The Wall by Eve Bunting.  If your community includes families in the armed forces, you may want to include this in your Thanksgiving pile. It tells a tale of a father and son who go to Washington, D.C. to locate his father's/grandfather's name on the wall. While there, they see many other families visiting the wall and their loved ones as well.

  

 Rivka having immigrated from Poland tries to convince her family and her rabbi that Thanksgiving is for all Americans,  whether they are Jewish or not Jewish. This touching story was brought to my attention when I was literacy coaching with a 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Gately. It is still one of my favorites---Rivka's First Thanksgiving by the author, Elsa Rael. ! 

These two books highlight the work of Greg Mortenson and his organization in Afghanistan to create schools where children can learn and grow. The Three Cups of Tea version at the top is perfect for upper elementary and early middle school while Listen to the Wind is a book for the younger elementary set. Reading one of these may open your students eyes as to how fortunate we are in this country to receive education and become literate at a young age.

The Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting fits in with Mortenson's theme of literacy. It tells a tale of a young granddaughter teaching her grandmother how to read as a surprise for her father's birthday. As to be expected, Bunting weaves this story with a masterful pen.  

These last two books are on my list to read. I was so grateful to hear John Wood talk about his vision for Room to Read last year at Northeastern University. His vision for literacy around the world is remarkable and the way his organization trains teachers within their homelands is amazing. I Am Malala is a new and notable book by one of this year's Nobel Prize Winners. I am putting it on my Christmas wish list. 

What is one of your favorite books to read to your students about thankfulness and gratitude ? Please comment below  !