Resources
for Literacy Centers
Kellie Doubek,
Presenter
kdoubek@comcast.net
Centers are effective when student are completing independent activities to reinforces skills at their instructional level.
Great ideas for working with words.
Check out Puzzle Center for puzzles to play and/or create! The word shape puzzle is great for primary grades. Enter your word wall words, vocabulary words from stories or content areas, or find a puzzle that correlate with other classroom activities.
Check out Stellar Speller and ABC Word Games at Candlelight Stories.
Teachers love BBCs Words and Pictures. Practice word blends, vowel sounds, and more!
Sunshine Online has leveled activities for everything from alphabet and rhyming games to reading about authors.
Some are better than others, but Read Between the Lions has some word games you might like. Pounce helps with word recognition, Chicken Stacker provides practice with short vowel sounds (you pick the vowel) and Fuzzy Lion Ears matches word sounds with letters (you choose the difficulty). Lots of choices for differentiating.
Check out the Clifford games for making words, matching letter sounds and words, and more!
In Fake Out, students have to use context clues to figure out the definition of a word. Choose words lists by grade level!
Building Reading Strategies and Skills
If you haven't seen Read-Write-Think, you've got to check it out! Check out the Student Materials Index for great center activities. I love them all, but Flip-A-Chip, Fact Fragment Frenzy, Letter Generator, and Comic Creator are my favorites. Look for the link that says "Visit this interactive tool..." Lots of opportunities for writing as well!
Read stories at the Read Between the Lions site and play a game related to the vocabulary and words used in the story.
Try out the sample ToonBooks. Students can read the stories themselves or have the story read aloud. Click on key words to interact with the story. Spanish versions available too!
Read the Clifford Stories and click on words to complete the sentence. Completed sentences are read aloud to students.
Starfall has many opportunities for reading stories at various levels. You might find Levels 3 and 4 more valuable than the others.
In Poetry Splatter, students choose words to create poems. They can print their poems when they're finished.
Supporting Six Trait Writing
Collabor-O-Write gives students the chance to enter a story, add to an existing story, illustrate a story, or write a story about an illustration... all online!
Paragraph a Week is a site you might like for students to browse writing prompts. Each includes a checklist for their writing.
Writing with Writers provides students with opportunities to respond to literature and read the work of accomplished authors. Great opportunities for modeling writers voice!
Enter the appropriate parts of speech to create a Wacky Web Tale.
Power Proofreading will help students improve their grammar skills.
Looking for resources for teaching the craft of writing? Click here!
What are other teachers doing with centers?
Get tips and tricks for organizing centers in primary grades with Kinder Corner.
More ideas from Our School Family. Lot of visuals!
This primary teacher has an incredible list of resources, along with tips, tricks, and loads of ideas!
Check out these Independent Study Ideas for students who are reading independently.
Browse the
Early Childhood Technology Literacy Project for ideas.