Middle School Literacy Centers: Connecting Struggling Readers to Literature

Turn your struggling readers into successful readers with literacy centers created especially for middle-school students. This easy-to-use resource provides teacher directions, student directions, and reproducibles for forty center activities structured around the “Big Ten” areas of reading that all students must master: main idea, cause and effect, compare and contrast, vocabulary in context, sequence of events, literature terms, fact and opinion, author’s purpose, reference and research, and summarizing. Using a variety of literature genres, from fiction and autobiographies to newspaper articles and anecdotal records, these ready-to-go, classroom-tested centers allow students to apply, practice, and master the skills and strategies that will make them better readers and writers. A bonus pre-test skill set requires students to synthesize the “Big Ten” skills they’ve learned and provides teachers with a helpful assessment tool to use before students take the state writing test. Suggested strategies, materials lists, and targeted student goals for each center guide teacher preparation, and grading rubrics ensure all students know what is expected of them at each center.