Creating a Literate Community: Put It Into Practice

Create a Literacy Center

In this activity, you will design a new literacy center for your classroom. You will then develop a routine for the center based on a theme (e.g. friendship), topic (e.g. winter), or genre (e.g. poetry) you plan to teach.

	Principles for Planning Successful Learning Centers • Make decisions based on knowledge of children as readers and writers • Consider types of activities in which children will be independently engaged • Consider your state or district curricular expectations for literacy learning • Consider research about engagement and motivation • Consider guidelines for establishing children's independent use of the center Ford, M. P. and M. F. Opitz. Using Centers to Engage Children During Guided Reading Time: Intensifying Learning Experiences Away From the Teacher.

1. Review the principles for creating successful literacy centers from the Using Centers to Engage Children article by Ford and Opitz.
2. Identify where to create your center.
3. Choose a theme, topic, or genre to teach at the center. Consider your current classroom environment and literacy routines that will further support children's independent use of the center.

Use these directions to help design your new center:

• Select books for read-aloud to introduce and explore your center topic.
• Select stories, poems, magazines, and other print materials at various reading levels for children to read independently or with a partner.
• Develop a list of words related to the theme.
• Decide how to organize and display these literacy resources.
• Collect writing materials for the children to use at the center.

Use these directions to help develop new routines to use with the center:

• Develop reading and writing activities to develop the theme for small group or independent work. Are these activities multi-level? How will children work together? What is your role in these activities? What is the child's role?
• Make a list of directions explaining how students should use the center.
• Plan one or more lessons to teach students how to use the center.
• Create a procedure for students to indicate their participation in the center.
• List other daily routines to use with the center.

	Submit the final design for your literacy center, and plans for the routines it will support.

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