Cross-Curricular Learning Stations

“A literacy work station is an area in the classroom where students work alone or interact with one another using instructional materials to explore and expand their literacy.  It is a place where a variety of activities reinforce and/or extend learning, often without the assistance of the classroom teacher.  It is a time for students to practice reading, writing, listening, speaking and working with words.”

-Debbie Diller (Literacy Work Station expert)

Literacy work stations differ from traditional learning centers because they focus on independent practice with reading, writing, and spelling.  The activities in each work station are authentic and encourage responsibility and independence.  They inspire children to explore and learn through self-discovery.

Students will be paired up with a buddy who has similar strengths and weaknesses.  This pairing is to ensure that both students have the opportunity to engage in appropriate activities.  Each work station contains a variety of activities, and students are encouraged to choose an activity that will target their individual needs.

The frequency with which students will work in their literacy workstations may change during the year, depending on instructional focuses, etc.  On a stations day, students will typically work at two different stations for about twenty minutes each.  Although our class’ work stations will focus primarily on literacy skills, they will also include multi-disciplinary activities from other areas, which is why I refer to them as Cross-Curricular Learning Stations.

During work station time, I will be working with small Guided Reading groups in order to help strengthen students’ word recognition, vocabulary and comprehension skills.  Because it’s important that I can work effectively with the small groups, I have strict expectations for student behavior (particularly their volume) during CCLS time.  Students who are inappropriately noisy or off-topic will be asked to work independently at their seats.