Professional Documents
Culture Documents
How To Schedule Literary Blocks
How To Schedule Literary Blocks
Here is the good news. There is more than one way to be an effective
literacy teacher. Your schedule doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s in
order for it to work.
It’s not about how much time you have to
teach literacy, it’s all about how you use that
time to help develop and grow your students
as readers and writers.
Happy Planning!
-Sara
© The Stellar Teacher Co. LLC
If you’re a third, fourth, or fifth grade
reading teacher looking for more support…
COME JOIN US INSIDE
The Stellar Teacher Reading Membership
You might want to include these activities during your word study block:
• Word of the Day or Week
• Word Sorts
• Explicit lessons on word meanings or spelling patterns
Read Aloud
Your read aloud is one of the most important parts of your literacy block. During your read aloud you can:
• Introduce and expose students to a wide range of reading genres.
• Model reading fluency.
• Provide students with an opportunity to work on their oral language as well as their listening
comprehension.
• Read both picture books and chapter books.
• Spiral review reading, writing, and other literacy skills you’ve taught.
Your read aloud will help create and shape the community in your classroom, and it’s a great way to show
students how all of the literacy skills you’ve taught them connect.
*In upper elementary it is important that students get extended periods of time for both independent reading
and independent writing. However, keep in mind that you will have to build their stamina for any form of
independent practice.
But the reality is, we don’t always have a lot of control over our schedule. The good news is that no matter how
much time you have to teach, you can make a huge impact on the literacy lives of your students. So regardless of
how much time you have to teach literacy, I suggest you embrace the following principles when it comes to planning
the schedule for your literacy block.
• Focus on what you CAN control. There is no point in spending your energy wishing you had more time for
literacy if you’re only given 60-70 minutes. Use what you have wisely.
• Prioritize what is most important. Not all literacy tasks have the same impact. Your students will
benefit from a small group lesson more than they would from copying spelling words from the board.
• Don’t be afraid to change if your schedule doesn’t initially work out.
• Be willing to try new things. You never know what new routine or lesson structure will be a game
changer for your students. Continue to learn, explore, and grow as a teacher.
© The Stellar
© The Teacher
Stellar Company
Teacher Co. LLC
SAMPLE SCHEDULES
The following pages provide you with sample schedules for a variety of literacy block times. You
might have a literacy block that doesn’t exactly match the times that I have included, but you
can still use the suggestions to help you create your ideal literacy block. Simply add to or shorten
the suggestions provided to match the amount of time you have to teach literacy.
To help you find the section that matches closest to your literacy block, here are the sample
schedules that are included. Don’t feel like you need to review all the schedules, just the ones
that are closest to the time you have to teach literacy.
With the every other day focus, you rotate between reading and writing every other day. Each day you’ll dedicate
your 60 minutes to a single subject. So if you start Monday with reading, then on Tuesday you would do writing.
You would switch your focus between reading and writing each day. When you use the Every Other Day Schedule
you are making sure you incorporate all reading and writing elements during the week.
If you only have 60 minutes to teach all literacy subjects, you might want to think of it as a Combined
Schedule rather than separating reading and writing. Your read aloud is one of the most important parts of
your literacy block so I would suggest dedicating at least 10 minutes to reading aloud every day. Then you can
think of the remaining 50 minutes as an entire literacy block. You’ll spend 15 minutes doing whole group
instruction, 30 minutes on independent practice and then 5 minutes to wrap up your entire literacy block.
Some days your whole group mini-lesson will be focused on reading and other days it will focus on writing. The
same is true for your independent practice.
When you think of your literacy block on more of a Weekly Schedule you’re still able to squeeze in enough time
for all the important literacy elements, but you aren’t trying to get them all done every day. You are
prioritizing how to spend your day. You can pick two days a week to focus on your whole group instruction. On
these days, you tackle your reading and writing mini-lessons and make time for a read aloud or word study.
Then on your independent practice days, your students are working on the skills you taught the day before and
you are making time to pull small groups and confer with students.
With the Even Split Schedule, you are simply dividing your literacy block evenly between your reading and
writing instruction. While 45 minutes to teach just reading or just writing doesn’t seem like much time, if you
have quick transitions and really well planned lessons it can be done. Keep in mind that with an even split
between reading and writing, you’ll still need to incorporate your read aloud and word study into your week.
Somedays you you might choose to do these activities in place of your mini lesson or instead of independent
practice.
With the AB Days Schedule, you are still getting in daily reading and writing instruction, but you
are giving one subject just a little more focus. Each day you will spend 60 minutes on one
subject and then 30 minutes on the other. You will switch your focus every other day to make
sure you are providing a balanced amount of your literacy block to both reading and writing
throughout the year.
With the A La Carte Schedule, you create a literacy block that combines both reading and writing. The sample
listed above is just one way you can schedule your literacy block, but you have freedom to adjust the times to
meet your specific needs. I suggest starting your literacy block with a read aloud and then you’ll move into
your mini-lesson. You can try and be creative and combine your reading and writing mini-lesson into one, OR,
you can do a reading mini-lesson one day and a writing mini-lesson the next day. But each day your students
will get independent practice in both reading and writing which means you’ll also have time for small group
instruction and conferring for both reading and writing. With this schedule option, you’ll also have daily time for
a read aloud and built in time to focus on word study.
I have 3 schedules that you can consider if you have a 120 minute literacy block.
With the Reading Priority Schedule, you are dedicating just a little more of your literacy block to your reading
instruction. You still have enough time to focus on writing everyday, but you are allocating more time to teach
reading. This schedule gives you enough time for all literacy block essentials (read aloud, reading instruction,
word study, and writing instruction).
My Terms of Use:
This resource is for personal classroom use only and is to be used only by the
purchaser/original downloader of the resource.
stellarteacher.com