Reading Rotation or Reading Workshop Board

How do you handle rotations within your Literacy Block?

Finding a way to manage rotations within the Literacy Block might be one of the toughest things a teacher will ever have to figure out. It's almost like solving a difficult Sudoku game. It may even be a little harder than that.

I finally figured out how to make it work for me and I'd like to share that with you. I have my students work with the same partner each day for several weeks. This ends the confusion of "who am I working with today?" It also allows for the students to get comfortable with that person while also allowing for a shorter transition time between rotations.

One way I've grouped students is by using their MAP data. You could also group your students based on who works well together, by ability (high with middle, middle with low), or you could even have students choose who they would like to work with for that time.

Once I have the partner groups established, I print out the page below and post it next to our rotation board. Click on the image to download your own copy from Google Drive.

Wondering how students rotate between stations?

I use my own variation of the Daily 5. I want all of my students reading independently each day, working on the skill for the week, and working on grammar. I decided that I needed to come up with an acronym for reading just like my acronym for math rotations {read more about how I use math rotations here}

I use the acronym "R.E.A.D" and my students rotate within each station every single day.

The rotations are as follows:

Read with the Teacher

Enrichment (Station)

At your Seat

Daily Oral Language/ Read-to-Self

Making it work

I teach a mini-lesson before rotations begin on the skill for the week. This past week, for example, I taught a lesson on idioms. Once we are finished with the mini-lesson, rotations begin.

Each group comes to me during "Read with the Teacher". This is when I teach my guided reading lesson.

During "Enrichment" students work at a station on a skill they need to complete for their weekly notebook check. {Each week, they must visit Word Work, Poetry, Read to Partner and Read to Self}. They must have a reflection in their notebook from that station.

During "At Your Seat" students are completing an assignment related to the skill of the week. For example, this week, they were creating posters of idioms.

During "Daily Oral Language/ Read-to-Self" students are completing the Daily Language Review page shown on the Smart Board. Since this does not take the total 15 minutes, they then work on their reading reflection letter to me. This is a letter that the students write each week reflecting on what they have read. In this letter, they must include at least three thinking stems that show a connection to their reading. {They are NOT simply giving me a summary of the story.}

This is how I have my board set up. There are four groups (A, B, C and D). Partner groups are assigned a group. There may be 3 partner groups of 2 within each group---so maybe 6 people altogether within each group (depending on the size of your class). The board shows the order in which the students rotate.