Literacy Center Ideas
If you are an elementary teacher you are probably familiar with the idea of learning centers. Overall, learning centers can be used to cover multiple activities in one small block or to make learning a bit more hands-on as well. You may be more familiar with math centers but literacy centers can be just as useful. Especially for younger elementary students but there are ways to incorporate them into upper elementary classrooms. For some great literacy center ideas read on below.
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Literacy Center Ideas #1 Sight Word Activities
For younger elementary students sight words and figuring out the sounds of different parts of sight words are so important to build reading skills. There are so many ways also to incorporate sight words into your literacy center. Some of the ones below are my favorite ones to use when I am working with younger students on sight words.
Magnetic Letters
Magnetic letters are definitely something that you need for your literacy centers. Students can use these to spell out their sight words. You can use them with flashcards of the sight words and have students use the letters to spell it out while saying the sounds of the letters. Usually then I have my students also write the word on a whiteboard after working with the magnetic letters.
Sensory Bins
Next, sensory bins are a great literacy center idea. Younger kids love working in sensory bins. These bins are another place where you can use the magnetic letters. Throw in the magnetic letters with beans, rice, water beads, or other things that you like to put into your sensory bins. You can also throw toys in that go with the time of year that you are in or even toys of items that the sight words refer to. Students can then use tweezers or their hands to dig out the magnetic letters to spell their sight words and sound them out as they put them together.
Playdough
Playdough is another thing that you can incorporate into your literacy centers to help students work on their sight words Students can use the playdough to form the different words. It makes the literacy centers more hands-on and they are more likely to remember their sight words if they are able to visualize them and connect them to memories.
Site Word Hopping
One of my friends has a daughter that is dyslexic and I saw her doing this activity with her daughter to make reading more active. This meant that she would probably be more interested in it because reading is hard for her.
Basically, for this, you print out the sight words and you put them on the ground. Students then will read their sight words and then jump to that words until they are done with all of them and they can repeat it several times or however much time will allow. This can be incorporated into several sight word activities in one session for literacy centers.
Literacy Center Ideas #2 Phonics Games
Another one of the great literary center ideas is to do phonic games. Overall, phonics is the most important aspect of reading. Students can memorize words, but if they just memorize words they will only know that word. However, if they memorize the sounds in that word then they will be able to read significantly more words because they will be able to sound them out.
Phonics Task Cards
One of the items that I have made to cover a couple of sound blends is phonics task cards. These cards come with two types of cards one of them has a picture and kids have to circle, point to, or move a paper clip or clothespin to the right blend. The other card will have students write out the entire word that corresponds with the picture. Sometimes I also use magnetic letters and let students spell out the word with the letters. Students then can read the words sounding out each part so they understand the blends and how the sounds blend together better.
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Hooked on Phonics
When I was in elementary school we played with a game that I am pretty sure was just called the phonics game. It was one of those things that was sold on late night tv where you had to call in to order but my kindergarten teacher had it in her class as well and we used it for literacy centers. Sadly this game is no longer available but there is a program that is very similar called Hooked on Phonics. This is a system that will take readers from emerging readers to fluent readers. It includes different book levels for students and goes over all the English letter sounds and blends.
They also recently made an app that goes with their system. If your students have iPad in the classroom this app would be a perfect literacy center idea. Students will learn reading skills and it will set them up for success later in life.
Literacy Center Ideas #3 Google Slides Digital Reading Comprehension Activities
Another great item to use for literacy center ideas is google slides. Google Slides is a great platform to use for reading comprehension activities. I have made a couple of products as google slides reading comprehension activities. The first is a bundle of reading activities for the Sarah Plain and Tall series.
This is an amazing reading comprehension bundle for the whole Sarah, Plain, and Tall series. Once your upper elementary students go through this their reading comprehension skills will be heads and shoulders over where they were before. Your 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders will also love reading. It includes digital reading activities for all five books in the series. If you are teaching this series this is the resource for you.
All of my students loved reading the Sarah, Plain, and Tall series this summer and these activities helped them grow significantly in their reading skills. If you are looking for digital reading activities this bundle is a great place to start. You will have a reading lesson plan for a couple of months and students will love reading these books together.
Once again if students have iPads or Chromebooks then these Google Slides activities can be used in centers with not as much guidance from you as a teacher.
Another set of Google Slides reading activities that I have is for the book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. This activity will have your students practicing their reading comprehension skills and their skills for predicting what will happen next. Also, this activity is free for my subscribers. In order to get a copy of it click the image below and fill out the form to become one of my subscribers.
Literacy Center Ideas #4 Boom Cards
The last of my literacy center ideas are Boom Cards. Boom Cards are another perfect thing to do on iPad or Chromebooks and there are so many options that will have your students working on phonics or reading comprehension activities. Plus their self-grading features allow students to have instant feedback which means they can do the activities independently. This means that they are perfect for centers.
I hope that these literacy center ideas are perfect for your classrooms. If you benefited from this post please consider sharing it so that others can benefit as well.