Reading Center Activities Teaching Resources
Do you need new classroom reading center activities to kick-start literacy learning in your classroom? Explore a collection of thousands of reading activities, games, worksheets, printables, and more that have been created by teachers specifically for you to use in your literacy centers!
What Are Reading Centers or Literacy Centers?
Haven't set up centers in the classroom before? That's OK! The teachers who review every resource on the Teach Starter site before it ever makes it to your subscription have put their expertise together to create this guide to setting up reading centers to ensure your students get the most out of them!
First things first: What are centers? These spots in the classroom are designated spaces where your students can work individually or in small groups practicing decoding, blending, reading comprehension, and any other needed literacy skills. You might think of reading centers or literacy centers as practice areas for students to take the concepts you've been teaching and start tackling them independently.
If you need to differentiate instruction, classroom centers for reading can engage mixed-ability groups or academically-similar groups. You can also use your centers to focus on particular reading areas such as phonics, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension.
Centers are typically student-led and great for diverse learners to work at their own levels and paces. When group work is involved, the groups are limited to no more than four students.
What to Include in a Reading Center
Just as learning centers can be set up for various subjects (check out our math center activities while you're here!), reading centers can include various activities! That's why you'll find that our teacher team of experts has created everything from task cards to sorting activities to include in your reading centers.
Explore the collection to find the right activities for your students and your centers!
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Lower Grades - Synonyms or Antonyms? Sorting Activity
Identify synonyms and antonyms with a sorting activity designed for lower elementary students.
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Apple Barrel Blends - Sorting Center
Supplement your phonics lessons with a consonant blend “Apple Barrel” sorting center.
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Multisyllable Words Google Interactive
Build multisyllable word decoding skills with upper-grade students with a Google Slides interactive activity.
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Google Interactive Sight Words - 1st Grade Dolch
Read, write, identify, and build all 41 Dolch first-grade sight words in an interactive Google Slides presentation.
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Blends and Digraphs Clip Card Reading Center
Practice identifying digraphs and blends in word through interactive Google slides and traditional PDF printable formats.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – /er/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /er/ sound.
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Color by Sight Words - 5 Words - Bee
A fun coloring activity to use when working with sight words.
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CVCC Word Work Mat
Practice segmenting and spelling simple words with this set of 24 CVCC picture task cards.
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Secret Message Task Cards - Beginning Sounds
Apply letter-sound correspondence with this set of 20 task cards.
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Poetry Task Cards
A set of 20 task cards to practice different elements of peotry.
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Scoot and Rhyme - Rhyming Activity
Practice rhyming words by SCOOT-ing around the classroom with this set of 20 rhyming task cards.
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FIND IT! Rhyming Words Game
Practice recognizing rhyming with pictures and words using this set of 20 cards.
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Initial Sound Recognition Worksheets (uppercase letters) – Complete Set A–Z
A set of coloring activities to develop letter recognition and phonemic awareness.
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Sight Word BINGO (Fry Word List 201-300)
Practice learning sight words 201-300 on the Fry Sight Word List with our set of 22 Sight Words Bingo cards.
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Context Clues Task Cards
Use this set of 20 task cards to help students define new vocabulary words by identifying context clues within sentences.
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Sorting by Category - Vocabulary Activity
Early readers can practice sorting and decoding with this category sorting board activity for 1 to 4 players.
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Character Traits Graphic Organizer
Describe the most notable mental and moral qualities of a real or fictional person.
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What's the Author's Purpose? - Sorting Activity
A sorting activity to help students identify the author’s purpose for a piece of text.
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SPLAT! CCVC Word Game
A set of 36 task cards to practice decoding and reading CCVC words.
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SPLAT! CVC Word Game
A set of 36 task cards to practice decoding and reading 3-letter words.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - AFTER
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “after” from the First Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SEE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “see” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.
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Roll it! Read it! Write it! Dolch 1st Grade Sight Words
Practice reading and writing Dolch’s first grade high-frequency words with this board game for multiple players.
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Antonyms Polygon Puzzle
Match antonym pairs with an engaging opposite words tarsia puzzle.
- Reading Center Activities for For Pre Kindergarten
- Reading Center Activities for For Kindergarten
- Reading Center Activities for For 1st Grade
- Reading Center Activities for For 2nd Grade
- Reading Center Activities for For 3rd Grade
- Reading Center Activities for For 4th Grade
- Reading Center Activities for For 5th Grade
- Reading Center Activities for For 6th Grade