Literacy Centers

After reading Tompkins stages of spelling development I understood my students writing better. For the writing that I sample students were instructed to fill out a Venn diagram comparing two people in their lives. After the Venn diagram is finished students were told to create a story about what they have discovered. After reviewing the writing of students who are low achievers, mid achievers, and high achievers I would place them in a late stage 2: letter name- alphabetic spelling. I noticed that the low achievers struggled with the consonant sounds while high achievers struggled with short vowel sounds. Many of these students also struggled with homophones such as sea and see and hear and here. A lot of the students also confused sounds such as a and e. even though most of the students try to sound out words, it because difficult for them because they lack letter sound knowledge.

The literacy centers that I would use for this second grade class are both the phonics center and the spelling center. I would use these centers so that students can become more aware of phonics concepts to improve their writing. Mostly all the students have trouble spelling so a center where students can practice spelling would be very helpful to them. The only centers that I have seen so far in the classroom are writing centers where the students work in groups with the teacher and I. these seem to be helpful for students who struggle with getting ideas on paper, however issues such as spelling still appear in their writing.