Literacy Environment

What is a literacy center/station?

What is the purpose of literacy center/stations?

How do I manage literacy center/stations?

ABC Station	Pocket Chart Station	Big Books	Observation Clipboard	Listening Station
Never Ending Story	Browsing Box	Thesaurus	Map Attack	Alphabetizing
Overhead Projector	Library	Buddy Reading	Fast Writing	Poem Box
Writing Station	Sticker Story	Word Work	Digging Through the Dictionary	Read Around the Room

What is a literacy center/station?
A literacy center/station is a physical area set aside for specific learning purposes. The center has appropriate materials to enable the children to explore and work independently, interact with others and behave as active learners. Centers are an invitation to independent learning. The children are taking responsibility for their education by exploring, responding, recording, constructing, practicing and applying the skills of literacy.

What is the purpose of literacy centers/stations?
The purpose of literacy centers/stations is for all children to be engaged in meaningful literacy activities. Teachers must spend some time thinking about the objective of each center. At centers children must be…
    *reading or writing
    *talking or listening
    *practicing what they already know to become better readers and writers.
Centers are not for busy work. Research does not support this practice and too much learning time is lost when the management plan relies on worksheets. Instead of worksheets, establish literacy routines that the children have been taught and know how to follow.

How do I manage literacy stations/centers?
The management of the literacy centers is critical. Here are some general suggestions for making literacy centers work in your classroom.
    *introduce centers one at a time
    *explicitly demonstrate and practice routines
    *model, model, model
    *pace the introduction of centers
    *when a center is mastered, introduce another
    *be consistent with rules and routines
    *clean-up must be taught and modeled

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