What are Read to Someone Centers? How can they fit into my classroom? Do they meet all my student’s needs? How can I make it fit into my reading instruction? What do I do to engage students while still managing small group and individual instruction?
If you have been asking yourself any of these questions, keep reading! Read to Someone Centers will help students in their reading by focusing on reading fluency, accuracy, prosody, comprehension and more. Are you ready to take a look at the Read to Someone Centers?
1. Explanation of Read to Someone Centers
The Read to Someone Center is often a favorite of students. It gives them an opportunity to pair up with another student to share a book of their choosing.
Read to Someone provides a meaningful time for developing readers to increase their comprehension, fluency, and accuracy.
Other names for this center may include the following:
- Partner reading
- Buddy reading
- Read to a friend
- Read to Someone
2. Modalities of Learning
It is important to include all modalities of learning when instructing students. These include seeing, hearing, speaking, touching, and thinking. This keeps the student engaged in their learning while helping others with their learning. Reading to Someone Center includes all five of these modalities for students, here’s how:
- They can see it (whatever reading material there are using)
- They can speak it (what they are reading)
- They can hear it (whoever they are listening too)
- They can touch it (their reading source)
- They can think it (thinking about what they or their partner are reading)
3. Setting Expectations
Students need to learn how to become a reding partner. The teacher must define what Read to Someone sounds and looks like. Setting these expectations and providing modeling by the teacher and other students are essential components to making this center work in your classroom. Here are some suggestions that my help:
- Volume Control: Keep voice down when conferring with students to set the appropriate tone and expectations in your room
- EEKK: (elbow to elbow, knee to knee) Sit side by side for easy text sharing
- Check for Understanding: Restate the “who” and “what” of the reading material being read
- Use Reading Strategies: Use visual aid to help partners with reading strategies (see Fix-Up Strategies Bookmarks below)
4. Read to Someone Reading Materials
It is essential for students to have quality reading materials for the center Reading to Someone to work. Learners need to find reading materials that are the right fit for them. This can become problematic in some classrooms which may not have the access to the quality and quantity of books needed for this to be successful. Here are some suggestions that may help if this a problem you may be having.
- Leveled Student Stories
- Classroom Poetry Books
- Classroom Sight Word Stories
- Themed Classroom-Made Books
- Themed Individual Student Booklets
- Reading Lines
- Sight Word Lists
- Online Stories
- Online Educational Technology Programs
In summary, Read to Someone Centers provide a meaningful time for developing readers to increase their comprehension, fluency, and accuracy. It is important to model for students what Read to Someone sounds and looks like.
It is also important that you stick with it! This is one center that can get noisy at times. That is why setting up those student expectations are important. Soon your students will begin to love the Read to Someone Center!
Grab your Free, Penguin Counting & Color Student Booklet!
Find some more reading activities and assessments in my store, The Teaching Scene by Maureen.
To read more topics check out my blog, “Seven Effective First Grade Assessment Tools”
