What should students be working on independently while you teach small groups?

This is a question that is continuously asked in my building and on social media. As teachers, we recognize the importance of time. There’s never enough time to do it all, so it’s imperative that all time students spend at school is purposeful.

Below you’ll find many simple, evergreen ideas for word work centers that align with the science of reading research and evidence-based practices. Word work can include phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.

No need to make copies each week – Place these in dry erase pockets or have students complete it using an online tool like Seesaw.

Literacy Centers Aligned to the Science of Reading - dry erase dice for word building

Phonics & Fluency

Sound-Spelling Mapping

Level up your spelling practice! Say goodbye to rainbow writing and hello to phoneme-grapheme mapping, which gets students thinking about the spelling patterns that match the sounds in words. Mapping is an opportunity to practice spelling words in a purposeful way. Teach students a simple routine (say it, stretch it, spell it) that they can use all year long.

Mapping is pretty simple for CVC words, but gets more challenging as we go through phonics skills. You can also use pictures, instead of a word list, which makes it even more challenging!

Literacy Centers Aligned to the Science of Reading - phoneme-grapheme or sound-spelling mapping spelling words with a grid

Boggle / Magic Squares

Kids love anything that resembles a game – and this is an easy one to make. I call it Boggle, but others call it “Magic Squares.” The idea is that students have 9 graphemes to choose from to create as many words as they can. Every word must include the grapheme that is in the middle box. You can task students with creating as many real words as they can, or have them sort real vs nonsense words as they make them. They’ll love this one, and you may even catch yourself trying to compete!

Literacy Centers Aligned to the Science of Reading - using boggle to build words with a target pattern

Phonics Fluency Games

I’ve previously written a blog post all about phonics fluency games. Once you teach them to your students, they can play independently using any word list. So fun!

Vocabulary

We know that vocabulary knowledge is necessary for skilled reading. (It even has its own strand on Scarborough’s Reading Rope!) Research indicates that vocabulary is directly correlated to reading comprehension and even other literacy skills like phonemic awareness. These extension activities should be done independently after a word has already been taught, encountered in text, etc. Vocabulary extension activities like these vocabulary maps can help students internalize and “own” the word. You can use words that appear in your RELA texts, or take the opportunity to make some cross-curricular connections!

Four Square

This activity is based on the Frayer Model. Using a Four Square map, students demonstrate their understanding of a word by writing its meaning, using it in a sentence, listing synonyms/antonyms, and illustrating.

Semantic Maps

This meaning map that I created is more complex than Four Square as it asks for many more layers of understanding such as analyzing word structure and related words, finding common contexts, and exploring multiple meanings. Choose your words strategically as this one will definitely be challenging for students.

Literacy Centers Aligned to the Science of Reading - semantic mapping vocabulary

Comprehension

Graphic Organizers

Did you know graphic organizers are evidence-based?

The purpose of after-reading activities, like story maps, is to allow students to communicate the content of a text in their own way so that they can embed it in their long-term memories. This is the creation of the mental model: reading the surface code (text) and making meaning. This deep processing leads to enduring understandings that will help students comprehend new texts later on that have similar structures, themes, or content.

Using graphic organizers to organize understandings after reading a fiction or nonfiction text is supported by research.

Literacy Centers Aligned to the Science of Reading - graphic organizers

Syntax

Scrambled Sentences

Sentence structure can be tough for students to master, especially when starting from scratch like our littlest readers and writers! This scrambled sentences activity will have students thinking critically about sentence structure while having fun.

For an independent activity, students can practice writing the sentence on handwriting lines and illustrate to demonstrate understanding of what the sentence is saying.

literacy stations aligned to science of reading - scrambled sentences for syntax

Punctuation Placement

Are your students struggling to place punctuation marks in the correct spots? They may need more exposure and practice to develop syntactic awareness. Try giving students paragraphs without punctuation – It’s like a puzzle for them to solve!

Resources

Phonics Fluency Strips
Phonics Flash Cards
Sound-Spelling and Syllable Mapping Templates
Vocabulary Maps
Scrambled Sentences
Punctuation Placement
Graphic Organizers for After Reading