I’ve received tons of messages from teachers looking for advice on how best to organise their literacy lessons weekly. At the beginning of the year, I didn’t have any set topic on certain days but I’m hoping to implement a better system from now on.

This morning I made a list of all that needs to be covered;

  • Writing
  • Reading (and DEAR time)
  • Oral language
  • Grammar
  • Spellings
  • Poetry

and I then divided the topics into days. This is a rough guide for me and my class. It will likely change during the year but I’m hoping it will work well for now.

Monday

Monday morning – we will go through the new spellings and grammar for the week. We are using Spellbound and Just Grammar this year.

We will focus on reading and comprehension strategies. I will either use a new book per week (picture and short stories) or else focus on our class novel. We will do 1 comprehension strategy every 4-6 weeks starting with predicting. This will be mainly a reading focussed lesson however it will also involve oral language.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we will use the Reading Comprehension Box – I find these great for answering questions and they are differentiated so at the moment I have 5 groups. (This will be the focus for the first term and may change to guided reading after the October midterm.)

Wednesday

On Wednesday, writing will be the focus. We will do one genre every 6 weeks approximately.

Thursday

On Thursday, writing will also be the focus. I think 2 days a week for writing works well as its unlikely children will finish their writing in one lesson.

Friday

On Friday, our focus will be oral language. This may include poetry, debating, discussions, oral language games etc. Usually this will be a station teaching day – last year I used games such as Articulate (for Kids), Name 5, Don’t Mention It (Seomra Ranga) and Debating (with the teacher).

Stations

Last week myself and my SET teacher did station teaching 2/3 days and we will be continuing this as it worked well. She looked after reading – focussing on one comprehension strategy (prediction), I worked on recount writing, another group worked on the comprehension box and a fourth group had D.E.A.R. time.