Launching literacy stations

Streaming video - 2014

Literacy work stations are being embraced in many elementary schools as a way to ensure students of all ages are completing thoughtful, challenging tasks while their teachers meet with small groups of students. Debbie Diller, author of the book Literacy Work Stations, takes you into two primary classrooms to demonstrate how to create a thriving stations program. Patty Terry's first grade students and Vicky Georgas' second graders work in stations that include a wealth of literacy tasks designed to build academic and collaborative skills across the curriculum. This three-part video series captures the teaching conversations Patty, Vicky, and Debbie have with their students in real-time as new stations are introduced, problems with ...existing stations are analyzed, and the match between station tasks and student needs are assessed. About the author Debbie Diller has been a national consultant since 2000, but she still has "those 'back-to-school' dreams in the fall." After playing school in the basement of her childhood home in Lititz, Pennsylvania, she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in education from Millersville University and Temple University and spent the next thirty years as an educator. Debbie's ideas for her books also come from her work with teachers. She listens for frequently asked questions, patterns, teachers' needs and keeps a writer's notebook to collect ideas, thoughts, and notes. "Often, the old joke comes to mind: 'how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.' That's how I write: bit by bit, on planes, in hotel rooms, in my office on a rare day. Teachers' questions and comments spur me on through my daily, ongoing work in classrooms, which sustains my work." more