I've always felt the two terms were interchangable (sp?). Having said that, my suggestion is to run, don't walk, to the nearest Barnes & Noble and purchase The Daily 5. I used it to set up my Reading Workshop this year. I did literacy centers in K & 1 before. Now I'm in 2nd.
I continued to be amazed throughout the school year. Our last "official" reading workshop day was last Wednesday (lots of special activities these last few days), and they kids were just as engaged that day as they were months ago. It is a lot of explicit teaching, modeling and practicing up front, but when it's been taught well, and practiced, it is a thing of beauty. The only organization and set-up I did was: Read to Self & Read to Someone--Classroom library set-up--kids helped with this. I actually found a couple of articles about it on Choice Literacy and www.responsiveclassroom.org; set up book boxes (used magazine boxes) Listen to Reading--downloaded a bunch of videos from United STreaming and copied them onto CD for the kids to insert into the CPU; Gathered up all my books & CDs Word Work--I already knew what I was going to do with word study (Words Their Way), and found materials for them to work with (WikkiStix, white boards, magnetic letters, etc) Since the original set-up for the above, these are the only things I've done (this is since October for Read to Self & Someone & Word Work, and since January for Listen to REading: Added books to the classroom library as I found/bought/borrowed them Downloaded some more videos onto CD, and found out a way to burn just the audio portion so they can be used for book/CD sets Replenished paper for certain Word Work activities (next year, I will have this stuff more accessible and train the kids to do this) Added some specific word work activities (contractions, compound words, alphabetizing, etc) THAT'S IT! No coming in on Sunday afternoon for 2 hours to set up another week or two worth of center activities. No checking papers. Because I can look around and see everyone working, I know they are doing it. The only papers I had them turn in were the contractions, etc, for assessment purposes. I know this is long, but I'm preaching this to everyone I know!! The kids have done so well. At the beginning of the year 9 of my 16 kids were on or above grade level. Now there are 12 on or above! I'm thrilled. There is a Yahoo Daily 5 listserv.... I used a lot of resources from the Daily 5 website (www.the2sisters.com) and Jessica Meacham's website (www.jmeacham.com). I'm glad to answer any questions--on- or offline. Melissa/VA/2nd On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 9:30 AM, j browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Would someone please explain to me the difference between Centers and > Literacy Stations. > > Perhaps it's me, but I never had success with centers. I always felt they > were too > much work and I guess I wasn't organized enough to keep up with them. > When our district embraced the Four Blocks framework, I was thrilled. I > really felt > I had a handle on what the kids were doing at all times and knew that they > were fully engaged in > each Block. We have since moved to a more Reading and Writing workshop > approach and > that seems to suit our students as well. > Now the buzz is that we are going back to groups and Literacy > Workstations. > I am a little > bit concerned. My philosophy has been that teachers teach children and not > centers. > I know I can count on this list serve to help me see the light. > Thanks for any input on this subject. > Jean/NJ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
