Setting UP ELA Rotations
Practicing the First Rotations
Independent Reading Rotation
First, you first need to have the students practice rotations together and understand expectations. Independent reading is a great rotation to practice first! Students can read at their spots or choose a location in the room. However, students are also practicing the expectations during independent reading, silent!
Technology Rotation
Another easy rotation to learn is technology! Choose an ELA website and instruction and practice the expectations when on this website. I have lots of reading and recommendations on my website. Click to go to the Reading and Writing website recommendations.
Depending on your school or district, you may have a website organization already. However, being a special education teacher, it rarely applies to me. So, I provide each of my students with a Passwords & links Google Slides shared as a website. Then, all the students have to do is click on the links and all their usernames and passwords in one area. I have a link to the one I use in my Free Resource Library. Check it out!
Rotating
Once your class has two rotations, begin practicing rotating. When you begin, especially when students only have learned a few rotations, realize that multiple groups will be rotating at the same time. I prefer starting independent rotations first so the students can learn expectations, before I begin the Teacher Table rotation.
Word Work Rotation
Another easy rotation to learn as a large group is Word Work. Personally, I like to start with Rainbow Writing, which I will talk more about in a later post. It’s an easy rotation for a whole or small group to learn and practice expectations at one time.
Each student or group will need a word list for the word work rotations. This can either be a sight word list or a phonics skill. They will need this for most of the word work rotation activity.
Rotating for the First time
Once you and your students are ready to begin the teacher table / reading groups, begin with adding on a word work station! It’s a great way to start out small groups!
As the year progresses, you will add on more rotations and the teacher table instruction will begin!
In future blog posts, I will go over word work rotations that I do with my small reading groups. I have a resource about all the word work rotations if you want to check it out here. I also have two of them, Rainbow Writing and Write in Code, in my free resource library. Check that out below.
