The Reading Center Checklist
We’re at the point of the year where you know for certain if the things you set out to do this year are actually working or not. You dreamed up the way your classroom was going to run this summer, because don’t we all? You sorted your crayons out by color, because you had all of this glorious time. You meticulously leveled your classroom library to ensure that your students could find their “just right” book, and know how to put it back in its spot. You were ready.
And then the kids came.
All of your plans feel like they were for nothing, That work on writing station is garbage. Your library is trashed. Your kids are done with all of the things you planned for them to do during centers this year in like 10 minutes, and then they’re bored and goofing off in the back of the room, distracting you from small groups.
I’m here to tell you that you do not have to just endure chaos until you get a fresh start next year. School breaks lend themselves perfectly to a classroom overhaul…and October (although it is the month when the honeymoon is definitely over) is the beginning of the school break marathon. Fall Break, Thanksgiving, Winter Break…HALLELUJAH.
This is the month when my inbox is most heavily hit with questions about my reading block set-up. I’ve never really been able to thoughtfully answer these questions as deeply as I would like, because I’ve always been in the midst of my own October in the classroom. But this year is different, folks! I can write, in-depth, about my reading block…or at least the most recent version of it.
Now, I considered writing one post that covered all bases of a reading block, in-depth. But, when I started down that road, I realized it was going to take forever. And you may not what to take in all of that information at one time. So instead, I have for you… the checklist.
Let me introduce the checklist by saying that I do NOT (in all caps, always) believe in:
THREE ROTATIONS OF 20 MINUTES.
I know you were probably taught to do this. You may do it yourself. But LORD, do I dislike this method of running a literacy block. So, in the spirit of full transparency, here’s how I used a checklist to give my students a little more freedom and flexibility, while maximizing my small group teaching time.
Each kid has a checklist of what they need to have done by the end of the week. I have this checklist as a FREE DOWNLOAD HERE. The checklist is broken down by day. For me, each kid started with “Read to Self” (we did a hybrid Daily 5 model in my room that blended some pieces of Daily 5 + some expectation of my district/curriculum), then moved on to up to two other rotations that day. The rotations were shuffled up so about 4-5 kids in my room had the same checklist, meaning they could be at the stations at the same time. The kids store these checklists in page protectors in their daily folders. Every 9 weeks, they pull them out of the dividers, turn them in, and I shuffle them up and redistribute. I only make copies of this check list one time for the whooolllleee year. But they can get 4 different versions of this same routine.
This is what could be on their checklist for that day:
*Read to self, which involves 10-15 minutes of independent reading, followed by responding with a differentiated prompt. I have a whole blog post about my read to self routine HERE. You can get the differentiated reading response cards HERE, the notebook grading system HERE, or purchase the bundle of the two HERE.
*Work on Writing. I have a VIDEO of my work on writing station from this past winter. The kids have options. But for the entire first semester, they have one choice (unless they are an exceptionally responsible group of 2nd graders). I have a variety of writing stations I like to introduce them to one at a time through the first half of the year. Then, when they return from winter break…BOOM. There are three options. And by that time, they’ve learned the ropes of all of them and can choose for themselves based on what they enjoy. But no matter what they choose, they are writing.
*Read to Someone: I work in fluency here with THIS CENTER PACK. It can be used with any book. I put out one activity at a time, with different sets of books for much of the first semester. By the time January rolls around, this is another big shift…all 6 are out at one time. The kids can choose. But they are very good at choosing at this point, because they’ve done them all once. I leave all 6 out for the remainder of the year. By the time we get to March/April, we are doing a lot of test prep and testing, so there are less days where the kids are going to centers every day. In May, we pretty much don’t go at all. So it sounds like putting something out in January and leaving it out for the rest of the year is going to get so boring…but here’s why it isn’t:
-The kids are only going once a week.
-The kids have 5 options, and will only do one option each time they go.
This means that they are only potentially doing the same activity once every 5 weeks. That puts you in mid- February before they are doing the same activity again. Some kids love one of the activities so much they do it over and over again for weeks before they switch. More power to them . I trust that any of these activities will engage them, as well as boost their reading fluency, so I always gave myself permission to not police this. I’m trying to simplify my teaching life, after all.
I also, on occasion, had kids do recorded readings with an online voice recorder and score their thoughts on their own fluency with a rubric. That entire product is in my store, as well.
*Word Work OR Vocabulary:
On weeks when I was doing vocabulary enrichment, I used THIS PACK.
On weeks where I was focused more on word work, I used this center pack from Brown Bag Teacher. There are enough activities here to last me the year. I put out four options at a time (sometimes I split the bins between vocal and word work, to spice things up). I also utilized sound boxes in our word work boxes early and often in the year.
My must-have word work manipulatives are linked below from Amazon. These are affiliate links, and I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you, if you choose to purchase from these links.
*Listen to Reading:
As a school, we had a subscription to RAZKids, which is awesome. It reads the stories to the kids, then gives them comprehension questions, so it is a totally digital center. No need to add extra accountability. When I worked in schools that did not have this subscription, I used storyline online videos or EPIC books (not affiliate links) + skill-based graphic organizers for kids to fill out about what they had just heard.
So, now each kid has their checklist. Centers are ready to go. They move at their own pace, and all I do is put a timer on my SMART board so they know how much time they have. I require that each child do some sort of read to self reflection each day, and at least begin another center. I say this because you will have those kiddos where reading and reflecting well in one hour is close to all they can do. You will have other kiddos who can go way above and beyond this. Some kids are great at pacing themselves right at the beginning with the timer on the board. Others need some visual cues (timers work very well for this). Some kids may even need you to physically get up and prompt them to get back on track a couple of times. But ultimately, everyone gets there. It’s amazing how great they are at adapting to the freedom.
PS: While all of this is going on, I’m pulling small groups. Because everyone is flowing through their stations without any real cues from me on when they need to stop or start the next one, I can pull groups in any time increments I want. This is why it’s all worth it. Teaching all of the behavior and work-ethic expectations on the back end is worth it to have this kind of freedom with my small groups.
At the beginning of the year, these babies were only recently 1st graders, and they need to meet with me at the table in traditional groups. But, over time, I know them as readers REAL well, and they start making the shift from “I was just a 1st grader” to “I’ll be a 3rd grader before we know it”. That’s when I can start getting creative. I can put groups in book clubs and have them host the discussion on their own a couple days a week, with only a brief check in with me. I can have days where I pull some groups twice because they need a phonics-focused lesson, then I give them a break to do their independent reading, then I want to bring them back to read their book box books to me and do a running record. I can do fluency checks with a couple kids a day. I can meet with traditional groups for 15 minutes a piece and see 4 groups. I can do it differently from day to day, based on what my kiddos need. THIS MATTERS.
With all of the demands on teachers for what they need to focus on in literacy instruction, we need this kind of flexibility. Even your highest achieving babies need you…especially if you teach primary literacy. They only just began to read fluently, and the rigor of the standards and the texts they will be faced will keeps increasing. They need your encouragement, your guidance, your love…just like any other kiddo. If we’re not paying attention, our high flyers can get lost in the shuffle and begin to dip.
We’ve gotta keep tabs on all of them, all of the time. Giving my kids a little more flexibility during their center time with a checklist allowed me to do that, and I hope it offers you the same freedom in your teaching. <3
