Rachael Matchett's Literacy Center, Links, Ideas

The website that I visited was titled Literacy Center Essentials. The first paragraph made a good connection to the classroom today in that the class sizes are getting much larger. Not only are the classes bigger, but there is much more diversity. Having learning centers can provide for those learners who need a different approach to education. The website mentions that literacy is often the one are in the curriculum that is skipped. This is so because there are so many different diverse skills that must be mastered. Also, just as in any other subject, students can be at very different levels of literacy.
While the students are at different stations, the teacher pulls aside a group of students and completes an activity with them whether it be reading a short book or learning how to sound out new words. The same group is not always with the teacher. Each time it changes. The stations also have to be engaging enough for the other students to keep focused in order for the teacher to help students. The main focus of these stations is on reading, writing, and spelling. Normally, students work in small groups or partners. This allows them to develop social skills. Having multiple activities available at each station is recommended so that the students have a choice of what they want to work with. Also, some students may be at different levels of achievement, so having these extra activities is very beneficial
This website was very useful because it explained what learning centers were. It also gave a few steps on how to start your own learning center. There were a few key benefits that were explained on using learning centers. On the side of the web page were different books that have been recommended by viewers. Also, different resources were given on the right side of the page on learning centers. At the end of the page there is an option to leave a comment about what you thought about the website. Finally, there are different phone numbers and email addresses that you can contact if you have comments or have difficulty navigating through the website. What I would change about the site would be that they provided some examples of some activities to do in the learning centers. Some first year teacher may have never heard of learning centers and would benefit from a few examples of small activities.
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