Recently, I have seen some debates on using centers and the Science of Reading. If you have been a teacher for a long time, centers were a HUGE part of Balanced Literacy. Recently, teachers have shifted away from balanced of literacy to research based Science of Reading. You can read my Science of Reading Post 101 here.
I am huge believer in we know better, we do better. I am fortunate that my district has been providing us professional development on Science of Reading since PC (PreCovid, about 4 years ago). I said bye, bye leveled readers. Hello, decodable texts. I did NOT say goodbye to my centers.
I am more conscious about my literacy centers. I make sure my students KNOW HOW to independently do the centers. At the beginning of the year, I keep it simple. I love letter sorting activities for the beginning of the year. Most of your students should be able to sort letters based on their shape.
I will teach students how to do the activity before I have them complete it. For a tub activity, I have my class sit in a circle and I model how to do the activity. Then, I pick a few students to do it with me. Then, they will independently to it. This model is called I do, we do, you do, and you will see that referred to in many SOR texts.
This is why I LOVE pocket chart activities. I will model how to do it, then we spend a week doing it together, then students will complete on their own. You can get this pocket chart sort here.
I also like these matching letter activities. As your students are matching the upper and lower case letter, they also have a visual to support them. This is great for the beginning of the year. I teach my students to point to the letter and say the name of it, then point to the picture and the say the name, then point to the letter and say the sound. They may not all be able to do this at the beginning of the year, but hopefully, someone in their group can model it. You can get these FREE here.
As the year goes on, you will need to differentiate your centers. I do this with different color baskets. I write students name with a color that matches the basket so they know what color to use. If their name is in blue, they get a blue activity. If their name is in purple, they get the purple tub.
One question I often get asked is when do you have time for centers? Our curriculum takes 2 hours. At some point in your day, you should have an intervention block to pull students for tier 2 and tier 3 instructions. While I am pulling students for intervention, the other students do centers.
I hope this helps you. If you would like to know more about Science of Reading, check out my Science of Reading 101 post. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
