Reading Rotations

Okay,  I am finally ready to post about my reading rotations.  Or at least I think I am.  It is going to quick and easy.  First thing I do every year is find out which reading group each students will be in based on their DRA data.  I usually try to collect it as early as possible.  After I have my data I put my students in one of three groups.  I have had four groups before, but one group always got the short end of the stick.  I do cross-content teaching so I have about a 2.5 hour reading block.  I teach science and Social Studies within reading.  Here is a picture of my very basic reading groups.  I have them numbered right now, however I will let each group pick a name later on.  They are not number 1- as the lowest and 3-as the highest, because I don’t want any students to lose their ‘Growth Mindset. 

As you can see it is a very rough draft.  However, one thing I like about the chalkboard is being able to easily change the groupings if needed.

After I have found their groups each child got a rotation chart taped to their desks.  I have many students who cannot read yet and also quite a few ESL students in my classroom.  This is an easy way for them to know where they go and when to go there.  I also have all three rotation schedules taped to where I sit at my small group table.

The little boy with the headphones is the center rotation, the little girl at the desk is seatwork and the table and chairs is small group or teacher time.  This is the first year I used this method and it made everything so much easier!

Finally, each student goes to a center when they are on that rotation.  The students go and look at the center chart to see where their name is and then go to that center until I shake a maraca to signal transition time.  All of my centers are not quite ready yet, such as computers, and magnet center.  When they are I will rotate the centers in a out so it doesn't get too boring.  Also the photos are magnetic so all I have to do is move the photo to the top of another list of names to change their center.

Thanks for stopping by!

Deb Avrick