1. Managing Centers
This is a scheme for having centers in which students are mixed ability, while you are instructing same ability students in small group. My thinking is that students would have a Prescription for Centers, like the cards in this PowerPoint. The cards could be kept on the students’ desks or in a “center work folder” so they could look at them to know where to go on that day. If the card was laminated the students could cross out the centers that they have done with a dry-erase marker (if they have difficulty reading Monday, Tuesday, etc.) I am thinking that students would have the same plan every week of instruction. The Center Names would stay the same but the activities within the center might change. The attached cards have the following stations included: 1 - Letters and Sounds, 2 - Reading, 3- Writing, 4 - Word Work, 5- Listening. The other icon is the teacher icon, which would represent small group instruction at the teacher table. They would only do 2 centers per day (when they are not with the teacher), but within the week would get to all of the centers, twice. I really built this thinking of Kindergarten; but it could work with any grade and center names could be exchanged. The color that the student’s name is written in indicates the reading group that they attend (red BL, blue OL, green AL). Consider putting some connected reading in every center.
For older students you might have different titles of centers and certainly you would have less word work and more reading during the week. You might have a partner reading center, fluency center, or readers’ theater center, in addition to the self-selected reading center.
To see who goes where and make sure that centers are not overcrowded, you could have the color-coded student names (color coded by reading group) on pieces of paper and also the names of the centers. You would physically arrange the students’ names of those students who are not with the teacher so that they are mixed ability at the centers, making sure to limit the number of students in each center. As you do this you would build the center prescription card to match where you place the names. This takes quite a bit of time and thought; however, once you have it, you could use this over and over again each week…unless you decided to add another center or substitute one, in which case you would have to rebuild the center cards. If you wish to try this with this scheme I have given you, you could type in the names of the students instead of “Student A”, Student B”, etc.
I don’t have a classroom right now, as I am a regional coach, but I will possibly have some teachers trying this out in some places. If you would like to try it, please send me some feedback. Perhaps we can workout the kinks (there are always some of those, aren’t there?)
I also included some center labels for the 5 centers that you could use (the pages with the names and large icons).
The last 5 pages are the coded pages where I worked this out. These may be helpful to you if you need to add more students. The colors represent the students who would be in a center together (with the same sequence of numbers in the same rotation. I tried to make this generic so that any teacher with 5 centers and 18 students could do this. I know the numbers will not work out exactly like mine (6 BL, 6 OL, and 6 AL) but perhaps you can take my work and make it work for the numbers that you have in a group. In my plan, no more than three would be at a center at one time. If you have more than 18 students, you might have to expand that to be different.
Carolyn Keasal
Alabama Reading Initiative Regional Reading Coach

2. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student G’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Student H’s Centers 1 2 3
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

3. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student I’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Student J’s Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

4. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student L’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Student K’s Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

5. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student B’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Student A’s Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

6. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student C’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Student D’s Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

7. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student F’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
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Student E’s Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
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Thursday
Friday

8. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student M’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Student N’s Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
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9. 1 2 3 Centers 1 2 3 Student O’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Student P’s
Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

10. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Student R’s Centers Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Student Q’s Centers 1 2 3
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Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

11. Letters and Sounds

12. Reading

13. Writing

14. Word Work

15. Listening

16. Student G-BL
Student H-BL
Student I-BL
Student J-BL
Student K-BL
Student L-BL
Student A-OL
Student B-OL
Student C-OL
Student D-OL
Student E-OL
Student F-OL
Student M-AL
Student N-AL
Student O-AL
Student P-AL
Student Q-AL
Student R-AL

17. 1
Letters & Sounds 2
Reading 3
Writing 4
Word Work 5
Listening

18. T 1 5 2 3 4 T 5 4 1 2 3 T 4 3 5 1 2 T 1 2 3 4 5
A - OL
B - OL
C - OL
D - OL
E - OL
F - OL
G - BL
H - BL T 3 5 4 1 2 T 5 3 1 4 2 1 T 5 2 3 4 3 T 4 5 1 2

19. 2 T 3 4 5 1 3 T 2 4 5 1 2 T 4 3 5 1 5 T 2 1 3 4
I - BL
J - BL
K - BL
L - BL
M - AL
N - AL
O - AL
P - AL 3 4 T 5 1 2 2 3 T 4 5 1 5 1 T 2 3 4 1 5 T 2 3 4

20. 1 4 T 2 5 3 5 3 T 1 4 2
Q – AL
R- AL