Setting Up Special Ed Literacy Centers? Read This First!
Literacy is an important area to develop in all students! In special ed settings especially, literacy skills are key to helping students build independent skills that will benefit them all of their lives. Luckily, there are ways that we can promote these skills in our classroom every day. Read on for some ideas of how to incorporate literacy activities into your centers!
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The Benefits of Literacy Activities
Literacy activities are crucial to your students’ development! The ability to read or recognize words helps is the key to giving students independence both in school and in life. We need literacy skills to help us navigate the world. Our students deserve to have that foundation!
However, literacy skills include more than just reading words. For example, at the very basis of literacy skills is the understanding of the purpose of print and the ability to properly handle books. Phonemic and phonological awareness (the ability to work with individual sounds and sound parts) is an important set of skills. Comprehension (understanding) of texts is another example, as is oral fluency. All of these skills combine to create literacy.
There are many ways that we can help students develop in each of these areas. That is where literacy-focused center activities come in!
Centers in the Special Ed Classroom
Centers are the foundation of special education classrooms. Implementing them will make such a difference in your classroom! For teachers, utilizing center rotations allows you to provide targeted instruction to each student or small group of students. Additionally, they let you to utilize paraprofessionals in an effective way by having them lead some stations and take data on student performance. For students, centers help to create a predictable routine. When students know what to expect from their routine each day, it helps them to build independence!
Teacher-Led Literacy Centers
Teacher-led and paraprofessional-led centers are an integral part of center routines. These stations are where you are able to directly teach your students and observe (plus take data on!) their progress.
Teacher-led literacy centers might include direct instruction followed by independent practice. When I am working with a small group of students, I keep some tasks or handy for students to complete while I am working with someone else. These could be worksheets or task boxes that students can do on their own to reinforce skills.
One way that I cover a lot of literacy skills at once is with Simple Comprehension stories! These seasonal stories are paired with comprehension, sequencing, and vocabulary activities. Each story also comes with the story and activities differentiated to three levels. This helps you make sure that all students are able to work on the same skills at their individual levels.
Additionally, instruction during literacy centers should include both sight word and decoding activities. If a student has trouble memorizing words, I focus on phonics instruction, paired with exposure to sight words. For students with decoding deficiencies, sight word reading with phonemic awareness exposure is beneficial. If a students is already a proficient reader, I focus more on comprehension, plus exposure to functional sight words, is my approach.
Independent Literacy Centers
In addition to teacher- and para-led centers, your students will also participate in independent activities in the classroom. ANY activity can become independent work if your students can do it themselves (or get started on it with very little assistance). Here are some examples of independent activities that are great to incorporate into your literacy center rotations:
Fine Motor Tasks
Fine motor work is a great way to help set students up for success with writing! By helping your students develop their hand strength, you are preparing them for the work of holding writing utensils. Read all about fine motor centers here!
Virtual Activities
There are many online activities that can promote literacy in your classroom. One example is online games, such as alphabet and sight word games on ABCya. I also like to have students explore the books on GetEpic.com. On that site, they can find books to read on the level or even have books read aloud to them. If your district has subscriptions to educational websites such as IXL or iReady, those can also be options that are utilized during literacy center time.
Independent Reading
“Independent Reading” is always one of my centers during my classroom’s ELA block. I like to put out seasonally themed picture books and adapted books for my students to read and interact with.
Even if your students are not “traditional” readers, it is still a great idea to give them plenty of access to books! Interacting with print is a beneficial literacy skill. And the more students interact with familiar books, the more likely they are to pick up on words and patterns, which leads to increased reading skills!
Word Building
My students love to play with word-building cards! These are words written on cards paired with physical letters. By building the words, students practice letter identification, word associations, and spelling. There are premade word building activites available, but this is also an easy activity to make yourself. All you need to do is write target words on index cards, and pair them with some physical letters. These could be wooden or magnetic letters, scrabble-style tiles, or even handwritten letter cards.
File Folder Activities
There are soooo many ELA-themed file folers that you can add to your independent work centers! Letter matching, letter sounds, sight words, and picture-word matching are just a few of the options you can introduce to your class. These activities help increase student independence while develping literacy skills at the same time. Win win! This free color-word matching folder is a favorite in my classroom.
Incorporating literacy center activities is so beneficial for your students! And luckily there are so many easy ways to add them into your day. How do you incorporate literacy work into your self-contained classroom? Share your ideas in a comment!
