Thank you so much for this wisdom. Such an important question to sit with. I'd add one more to your list: what instruction has already happened before children arrive at the station?
Literacy stations work best not as the place where learning happens but as the place where learning is practiced.
The challenge is that in many classrooms the stations come first and the explicit instruction that should precede them either hasn't happened yet or hasn't gone deep enough.
A child who hasn't been thoroughly taught a routine whole group isn't ready to do it independently — no matter how well-designed the activity looks on paper.
I've been developing what I call a Practice That Travels framework, a small set of high-leverage routines that are explicitly taught whole group first, then released to centers only once students can do them independently.
The same routines run across completely different units and content areas, which means students aren't relearning the structure every time — they're just applying familiar moves to new content.
That familiarity is what makes genuine independent practice possible.
Your closing line says it perfectly: structures don't teach children to read. Instruction does. The stations are only as good as the instruction that came before them.
Thank you for such a thoughtful contribution Leah. I completely agree that the quality of what happens before children arrive at a station is critical. Independent practice can only reinforce learning that has already been explicitly taught and sufficiently rehearsed.
I particularly like your point about children not needing to relearn the structure each time. There's a real cognitive advantage in having familiar routines that can be applied across different content areas, freeing up attention for the learning itself rather than the task demands.
"Practice that travels" is a lovely way of describing that valuable idea. Thanks for sharing your thinking and adding an important dimension to the conversation.
It was so refreshing to see your article and to engage with it. For too long there has been unhelpful (in my opinion) noise around centers/stations and how they shouldn't ever be done. I'm confident and have seen in my work centers/stations that impact students positively. They are effective when they are developed thoughtfully and guided by both research and what is happening in the classroom. Your article will help schools do that.
Sometimes, the stations are completely replacing whole class instruction because they take up so much time (up to an hour in some cases). That’s a problem!
I completely agree. What I find happens often is we take the worst example of something and make that the reason that something shouldn't be done. When that happened with learning stations, many teachers started doing all instruction whole class. My mission is always to help people better understand the purpose of different components and figure out how to ensure that the centers/learning station in that instance are reinforcing and making automatic what has already been taught well in whole class instruction. I would love your thoughts on my article about practice that travels: https://leahmermelstein.substack.com/p/the-instructional-playbook-move-i?r=4uwjft&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
So well articulated as always, Jen! Sometimes station activities are inadvertently expecting novices to ‘discover’ what is inherently undiscoverable or at the very least needs some degree of explicit instruction and guided practice 👏👏👏
That's such an important point Geraldine. Too often we assume that because children are engaged in an activity, learning is taking place. For novice learners especially, many literacy skills require explicit instruction, modelling, and guided practice before independent application is realistic. Stations can provide valuable opportunities for practice, but they can't replace the teaching that needs to come first.
That’s why ‘reprofessionlising’ teaching in my own ‘neck of the woods’ is essential in putting knowledgeable professionals back in a position of powerful influence, backed by a strong evidence base 👌
Thank you so much for this wisdom. Such an important question to sit with. I'd add one more to your list: what instruction has already happened before children arrive at the station?
Literacy stations work best not as the place where learning happens but as the place where learning is practiced.
The challenge is that in many classrooms the stations come first and the explicit instruction that should precede them either hasn't happened yet or hasn't gone deep enough.
A child who hasn't been thoroughly taught a routine whole group isn't ready to do it independently — no matter how well-designed the activity looks on paper.
I've been developing what I call a Practice That Travels framework, a small set of high-leverage routines that are explicitly taught whole group first, then released to centers only once students can do them independently.
The same routines run across completely different units and content areas, which means students aren't relearning the structure every time — they're just applying familiar moves to new content.
That familiarity is what makes genuine independent practice possible.
Your closing line says it perfectly: structures don't teach children to read. Instruction does. The stations are only as good as the instruction that came before them.
I wrote about this here if it's useful. https://leahmermelstein.substack.com/p/the-instructional-playbook-move-i?r=4uwjft&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Thank you for such a thoughtful contribution Leah. I completely agree that the quality of what happens before children arrive at a station is critical. Independent practice can only reinforce learning that has already been explicitly taught and sufficiently rehearsed.
I particularly like your point about children not needing to relearn the structure each time. There's a real cognitive advantage in having familiar routines that can be applied across different content areas, freeing up attention for the learning itself rather than the task demands.
"Practice that travels" is a lovely way of describing that valuable idea. Thanks for sharing your thinking and adding an important dimension to the conversation.
It was so refreshing to see your article and to engage with it. For too long there has been unhelpful (in my opinion) noise around centers/stations and how they shouldn't ever be done. I'm confident and have seen in my work centers/stations that impact students positively. They are effective when they are developed thoughtfully and guided by both research and what is happening in the classroom. Your article will help schools do that.
Sometimes, the stations are completely replacing whole class instruction because they take up so much time (up to an hour in some cases). That’s a problem!
I completely agree. What I find happens often is we take the worst example of something and make that the reason that something shouldn't be done. When that happened with learning stations, many teachers started doing all instruction whole class. My mission is always to help people better understand the purpose of different components and figure out how to ensure that the centers/learning station in that instance are reinforcing and making automatic what has already been taught well in whole class instruction. I would love your thoughts on my article about practice that travels: https://leahmermelstein.substack.com/p/the-instructional-playbook-move-i?r=4uwjft&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
So well articulated as always, Jen! Sometimes station activities are inadvertently expecting novices to ‘discover’ what is inherently undiscoverable or at the very least needs some degree of explicit instruction and guided practice 👏👏👏
That's such an important point Geraldine. Too often we assume that because children are engaged in an activity, learning is taking place. For novice learners especially, many literacy skills require explicit instruction, modelling, and guided practice before independent application is realistic. Stations can provide valuable opportunities for practice, but they can't replace the teaching that needs to come first.
Guided practice is very often the piece that is skipped over; moving from modelling to independent practice. This is where many kids will fall down.
That’s why ‘reprofessionlising’ teaching in my own ‘neck of the woods’ is essential in putting knowledgeable professionals back in a position of powerful influence, backed by a strong evidence base 👌
This made me think of this guide from Jamie Clarke on Poor Proxies for learning: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/s8vl7wzclf3w6mfloyvmc/Poor-Proxies-for-Learning-Guide.pdf?rlkey=6a3z5uigllc1yccy99fm5uc2c&st=y78juh7i&dl=0
I loved reading this, Jen! It reminded me of Dr. Lyons’s continual push for shared definitions as the starting point. Thank you!