Organization Of Literacy Block

This summer we have been bringing you "The Diggin' Into Series."

This week we are talking about the organization of our literacy block.

I am going to combine here and tell you things I did last year along with things I plan to change next year.

I use Daily 5 but last year just felt like my kiddos started to play more than have meaningful time at their choices. I decided to give my daily schedule a little makeover. At the end of the year I attempted to have mainly small group lessons for reading and WAY less whole group. I combined Daily 5 with reading workshop as I'm sure most of you do that use Daily 5. 

From 7:45-7:55 I plan to do my first reading mini lesson for the day. I just created an entire packet of reading mini lessons with tons of organizers to help keep my students responsible for their learning. {Keep reading to see those}. After this I am going to meet with one small group while the rest of the class is engaged in practicing the skill from our mini lesson or they will be in one of the Daily 5 choices. 

Now here is where I was stuck on making sure they were doing something meaningful. I usually just stuck a list of spelling words in the Word Work area and they have different choices such as stamps, dry erase boards, etc. There was nothing really for them to turn in and they started to just goof off and were not practicing their skills at all. I have decided to start putting my language centers here as well. I'll use a lot of stuff I bought on TPT as well as some of my own products. My products include a recording sheet that I will require them to turn in. I know Daily 5 is about choice so I plan to require that they complete the recording sheet during the week at Word Work and once it is complete they can choose what they want to do. 

My students will start to fill out a reader's response page next year which is where my read to self/someone and listen to reading accountability will come in. I found these forms for free {HERE} There is one for fiction and nonfiction. They will not need to complete one of these every day just as needed so if they are not completing a response they are participating in share time at the end of literacy block. I laminated the response options front to back and they keep a copy in their Daily 5 book bag.

From 8:15-8:35 I will be meeting with my 2nd small group. I have decided to try doing my main phonics/language lessons during small groups on some days (not all). This way I can really differentiate for my students. I still have a time set aside in my schedule for language and phonics for whole group too since we won't have time to cover everything in small group.

Next, from 8:35-8:50 I will allow students to share things they learned about themselves as readers that day or things they discovered while reading using their responses on their graphic  organizers from my reading strategy mini lesson packet. 

               

Make sure you check out the linky at Where the Magic Happens for more ideas!