Daily Reading Centers

Welcome back! It seems like it was an extra long Christmas break this year. I am excited to get back to school and begin some new things in the classroom. This week is going to serve as a review week to simply get students back into the school routine. We are also starting daily reading centers this week so that will be an adjustment for the students. I am going to use this post to explain what these reading centers look like.

The students are put into "flexible" groups for two weeks and refer to the board above for directions. Each day, the students will visit 3 learning centers (Each one for 8-10 minutes). This routine will establish time for me to meet with students in small groups of 2-3 students to work on skills that the students are struggling with specifically. It will also give students room to be independent and help others with their learning.

Center 1- Meet the teach
 This is the center where I will be working with small groups on skills specific to each individual group. We will put most of the focus on learning letters and sounds with an ocasional reading skill introduced as well.


Center 2- Word Work #1 - This week, the students will be matching letter cards to the same clothespin letter. This is good fine motor skills practice as well as recognizing letters (capital and lowercase)

Center 3- Word Work #2- This week at this center, students will be using play dough and letter/number cookie cutters to create letters and numbers. This is also a good motor skill because students are using their hands/fingers. This is also a good way for students to gain exposure to letters and talk with group memebers about letters or words they are making.

Center 4- Listening to reading- This center has books on CD that students listen to while following along with the pictures in a book. Being a good listener during stories is great for students of this age. The reader on the CD models good reading and expression for the young readers to follow.

Center 5- Read to self- This is at our Book center in the classroom. During this center students are allowed to look at books and tell their own stories.

Center 6- Writing/skill- This center will focus on a skill that we have previously learned or the skill that we are focusing on this week. This particular week we are working on making patterns at this center. This will be a good way for me to check on independent student progress with concepts taught in Reading.

I'm hoping this new system will provide students with more individualized instruction and guide them in a good direction towards learning and retaining skills and concepts. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about this. This does not replace reading in the classroom, it is supplemental to the whole group reading lesson and letter of the week that I teach.