For my Inquiry Project, I chose to investigate literacy centers. Before doing this project, I was aware of the centers located around the classroom, but I was not too familiar with literacy centers. Teachers typical have centers located around the classroom, and one center that is essential in the classroom is a literacy center. Literacy centers provide children with hands-on activities that reiterate the concepts that have already been taught in the classroom. Children are able to work with their classmates or independently in order to solve problems. Also, children are provided with an engaging and interactive environment in which they can practice the skills that they have already learned in class.
Teachers have an important role in preparing literacy centers; they must make sure that the center is organized, and the skills, concepts, and topics taught in class should be complemented in the center. Since the skills and topics have already been discussed in the class, literacy centers are an interesting and effective way for children to revisit important concepts. Teachers must give a lot of thought and investigation into what they plan on incorporating in their literacy center and much advanced planning has to occur in order for the center to be successful. Teachers should consider cost because literacy centers can become expensive. If classroom funds are available, teachers can use these in order to stock their literacy centers; if not they can solicit donations from parents and local businesses.
Literacy centers tend to focus on important aspects of literacy development including: phonics, phonemic awareness, spelling, reading, and writing. Even though these elements are addressed at many other times throughout the day, these elements are essential for children to establish in order to be successful. So, I think it is great that there is a lot of time spent address these developmental areas. Research has also found that “the integration of literacy centers can support improvement in reading comprehension, language, social, and writing development (Fountas & Pinell, 1996; 2000; Morrow, 1997; 2003).” Also, many teachers have recommended the use of literacy centers and say they are a very effective tool. Since it is proven that literacy centers can support the improvement of all of these skills, I think it is essential to have literacy centers in the classroom.
A typical literacy center includes: books or big books, a puzzle center that features alphabet puzzles, a listening station where children can follow along as books are read on CD, and a magnetic letter station that uses cookie sheets. All of these stations within the literacy center will provide the children with engaging activities in order to work on skills that have already been taught in the classroom. Other literacy centers include poem charts, and with poem charts, students use pointers to read poetry and rhymes out loud.
There are many benefits of having a literacy center in the classroom including: students learning the value of learning independently and collaboratively, this learning is accomplished through engaging in active self-discovery; students learn to take responsibility in and choosing their own learning task; teachers have more time to focus on individual students and their needs and this helps to structure class time more effectively; the flexibility allows the children to learn at their own level and have some choice in their activities; and enables teachers to facilitate small group instruction while other students are in the literacy center. The one benefit that really stuck out to me is that literacy centers allow teachers to meet with students for small group instruction. With all of the material that must be covered throughout the school year, this would be a good time to cover material in small group instruction while the other students are engaging in literacy centers. I think literacy centers are an excellent use of time. Instead of just having students do a worksheet or something, they can engage in activities in literacy centers that will be very beneficial to them.
I found a website from a teacher's first grade classroom that provided over 20 different literacy center activities; this website is incredibly beneficial and I enjoyed looking at all the ideas for literacy activities that this teacher had come up with. Also, I found the most useful assessment is to monitor student's participation in literacy to ensure that these centers are effective. I have learned a lot about literacy centers, and I am excited to incorporate these into my own classroom. All of the information that I have found through doing this project is extremely beneficial and I will definitely consider these in my own classroom.
http://www.msrossbec.com/literacy_index.html
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/38302/
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