Organizing Literacy Centers

I’ve had a lot of questions about how I organize my literacy centers. Here goes!

This is inside one of my closets. My literacy centers for every month are stored here. All the folders I use for each month go in the monthly folder holders (what are they really called?). Each month, I take out the folders I need and…

Place them in these folder holders (below). These are set out for the students. They are divided into four categories: reading, word work, writing, and sentence building. There are four centers for each category.

Students keep track of their centers using the menu. The categories on the student menu match the magazine holders with the center folders (Reading, Word Work, Sentence Building, and Writing).

The center menu helps them keep track of completed centers. They color in a box on their menu to show when they finished a center. They color it halfway to show they started but didn’t finish it.

Each center has a folder with a cover. The cover matches the menu.

This center is under the Word Work category on the menu, so it can be found in the Word Work folder holder. There is also a label on the top right of the folder. All the contents of that center are in that folder.

When choosing a center, the menu can help students locate the center they want.

They keep their menus, unfinished centers, writing notebook, books for daily 5, and student sight word dictionaries here in their book boxes.

To see how I organize my reading workshop time (mixing daily 5 and literacy centers and guided reading) click here.

To keep track of student centers, I have a checklist. They work on their centers ALL month. Once they complete a center, they turn it in. I grade them with a plus, check or minus.

If you really want to keep track of student progress, you could do your checks in a different colors for each week. That would help you keep track of how many centers they are completing each week (which will also set you up for how to support them the next month).

If a center is incomplete, I pass it back to them to complete. If a center is super sloppy, I pass it back to them (in most cases). If a student gets a minus I take that a sign that I need to sit down with them and find out why (was it lack of effort or understanding). There’s a mini-conference right there! It usually ends up being well worth the chat and full of teachable moments. 🙂 As the year goes on, if you continually set those expectations and follow through, you have fewer instances of passing back assignments that were sloppy or incomplete.

At the end of the month, I put the centers, the menu and this rubric (below) together in a packet and send it home.