Creating a literacy block schedule can be one of the most challenging parts of teaching reading and writing in K-2! There’s so much to fit in, you have limited time, and your kids have SO many different needs. Plus, if you’ve learned about the Science of Reading, it can feel impossible to create a Structured Literacy schedule that addresses all necessary skills, without spending 4 or 5 hours each day teaching literacy!

But good news…it IS possible to create a schedule that covers all the important Science of Reading skills and actually works in a real classroom. In this post, I’ll explain the mistake to avoid when planning your literacy block. I’m also going to take you through my simple process to create a Structured Literacy schedule for a Kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade classroom.

Now, my process might be a little different from how you’ve normally created a schedule, but hang with me! By the end, you’ll see how this process can save you a ton of stress and allows you to leave behind feelings of “I can’t fit it all in!”

If you’d like to follow along with the FREE printable materials I show you throughout this blog post, grab my Science of Reading K-2 Schedule Toolkit here!

And by the way, in case you’re not familiar with the term “Structured Literacy:” it’s an instructional approach that addresses the skills and principles for teaching literacy that have been shown to be effective by the Science of Reading research. It was originally coined by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA). (Want to dive deeper into this term and other SoR terms? Read about them in this blog post: “What Do All These Terms Mean? A Dive into the Science of Reading!”)

Consider Your Time

Before you actually begin planning anything, you should be clear on how long you will spend teaching each skill area. In my free toolkit, I give you some general guidance on about how long to spend on each essential Science of Reading skill area. I broke this up into separate sheets for Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade since there is variation depending on grade.

You’ll also notice that I divided up the skills into “teacher-led” (instruction and guided practice) and “independent student practice.” This is key to implementing Structured Literacy, because students will need explicit, direct instruction, followed by guided / supported practice, and then independent practice.

Note that some of the time suggestions are listed per day, and some per week. Also, the total amount of time for the skill areas may vary somewhat, depending upon students’ needs and any time restrictions you have. For instance, with Kindergarten phonics – the total time suggested can vary anywhere daily between 35 minutes and 60 minutes, depending on what your schedule may allow.

Sometimes the amount of time you spend on a skill area may change throughout the year, too. For instance, typical Kindergarteners won’t be spending much or any time building reading fluency on their own at the beginning of the year – but this will change once they begin decoding.

Prioritize Explicit Instruction In the Literacy Block

Next thing you’ll want to do is read over the checklist below (again, it’s included in my free toolkit):

When you use explicit instruction, you’ll want to intentionally plan for how students will gradually assume responsibility for practicing a skill independently. Your explicit, direct instruction, supported practice, and independent practice could happen all in one lesson, but more than likely, it will take multiple lessons for mastery. Therefore, you should plan for this in advance.

For example, on Monday you could model and use think-alouds to teach your first graders a comprehension strategy like identifying how character feelings change throughout a text. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you might provide opportunities for supported practice (still with a little modeling, but less than on Monday). Then, on Thursday and potentially Friday, students practice the strategy independently.

It’s helpful to think through how you will gradually release responsibility so that you can set up your schedule accordingly! Not every day will look exactly the same, and that’s okay (it’s actually a good thing!).

Plan for Skills First

Here is the mistake you want to avoid when planning your literacy block!

Years ago, I would have made the mistake of creating a schedule like this:

10-10:20: Read-aloud
10:20-11:00 Small Groups/Centers

I listed out instructional routines, like read-aloud, small group, or any specific programs I had to teach.

Now, this is NOT what I recommend! This is a mistake to avoid. Instead, I recommend you schedule by skill. I explain this in much more detail in my Science of Reading course for teachers. In the course, I even provide schedules that are already done for you!

But in a nutshell, scheduling by skill:

• Helps ensure that you are truly covering all essential skill areas (and not letting certain ones fall by the wayside, like vocabulary)
• Cuts down on the feeling of “I can’t fit it all in”
• Allows you to stop trying to cram so much into small group instruction – because you see that certain skills are already covered during other parts of your literacy block

It’s not that you don’t use programs or routines, but you think about them differently. They become tools that you use in order to achieve your end goal of students mastering specific skills.

In the free toolkit, I give you this simple template so you can use to schedule by skill:

Conclusion

If you’d like to have ready-to-use schedules so this process is DONE for you, check out my Science of Reading course for K-2 teachers!

In this course, I give you ready-made, detailed schedules for structured literacy in grades K, 1st, and 2nd that you can download and start using immediately!

I show you what to do when you don’t have as much time as you need to teach literacy, and/or when your existing curriculum doesn’t follow the science of reading.

This is a self-paced course , which means that you can watch the bite-sized videos whenever you have time!

Additionally, at the end of the course, you can choose to take a quick quiz if you want a certificate of completion (with your name on it) to be emailed to you for professional development credits (6 hours total).

When you purchase, you have forever access to the course (no yearly fee or future purchases required).

Read more about the course at this link!

Happy teaching!