Literacy Task Cards | Teaching Resource Center

Task Cards for Comprehension Literacy Model (Grades K-2)

Set 1: Word Building and Set 2: Vocabulary Development, Emergent, Early, Transitional Levels
Proven successful in Reading First Schools Nationwide, matches Reading First Initiative's recommended instructional methods
Manipulative-based, multi-sensory interactive tasks that promote problem-solving
Developed with authors Linda Dorn, Holly Mercado, Carla Soffos, and Teresa Treat
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What are the Literacy Task Cards?

Organized to match literacy behaviors that students apply when reading at the emergent, early, and transitional levels
Reinforce students knowledge of the print-sound code through developmentally appropriate tasks that are matched to their guided reading groups
Focus on problem-solving tasks that promote fluency, flexibility, and independence. Each new task requires that the students apply their knowledge and skills gained from previous tasks
Use consistent language on all tasks, thus enabling the students to internalize the instructions for guiding their performance

Download your FREE Guides to the Literacy Task Cards

To help you better understand how the task cards are used in a classroom setting, you can view and download the detailed 20 page guides that are included with each set of task cards!

Downlaod FREE Guide to Task Cards, Set 1 Word Building

Downlaod FREE Guide to Task Cards, Set 2 Vocabulary Development

Learn More About Using the Task Cards in Your Classroom

Our complete article "What are Literacy Task Cards?" explains how the task cards work, complete with video demonstrations. Or watch the demonstration video below:

NEW & IMPROVED! The 30-minute Literacy Task Card DVD

DVD (Teaching Resource Center SKU #53580150) - Retail Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $29.95 *Limited Time

Presents actual classroom footage showing task cards exercises in use
Viewers are shown first grade teachers as they model a task from each level with a small group of students
After each modeling session a student from the group works on the task in a word building center
The DVD is refreshingly spontaneous and will give you great insight into the power and effectiveness of the Literacy Task Cards
DVD shows you how to use the Set 1 Word Building Task Cards
DVD Ships within 15 business days!

Set 1 - Word Building

Perfect for your Word Corner, use the Set 1 Word Building Task Cards to engage students in the interactive acquisition of word knowledge.

The problem-solving nature of the tasks asks that students actively manipulate sounds and vocabulary building concepts with letters, pictures, and words, and end each task with a reflective writing component.
Engages students in meaningful activity and written in short, readable sentences for success
Students work independently on specific tasks aimed at their actual level of development
Students have fun and success, reading and writing interactively at their own instructional level!

Literacy Task Cards Set 1 - Word Building: All 3 Levels

Get all three Set 1 levels and save.

Teaching Resource Center SKU 53530290

Set 1: All Three Levels - Retail Price: $89.95 Sale Price: $76.95 *Limited Time

Literacy Task Cards Set 1 - Word Building: Emergent Level

Emergent Level: the goal of which is to promote students' attention to print, the tasks promote opportunities to hear sounds within words and to sequence letters in some known words.

Includes: 24 tasks including 198 picture cards, 20 word cards, and 10 category cards. Skills: clapping out syllables, matching rhyming words, matching beginning and ending sounds, matching words to pictures, and building words.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530030

Set 1: Emergent Level - Retail Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.95 *Limited Time

Literacy Task Cards Set 1 - Word Building: Early Level

Early Level: these more efficient readers engage in more complex searching behaviors to solve problems within text; near the end of this level, students begin to notice the spelling patterns within words. The tasks support students as they move from phonetic spelling to transitional spelling.

Includes: 34 tasks including 175 picture cards, 180 word cards, and 82 category cards. Skills: clapping out syllables, matching rhyming words, sorting words, building words, beginning and ending consonant digraphs and blends, inflectional endings, compound words, contractions, vowel patterns including medial and final e, digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled vowels.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530040

Set 1: Early Level - Retail Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.95 *Limited Time

Literacy Task Cards Set 1 - Word Building: Transitional Level

Transitional Level: students have a range of flexible strategies for working on text so they do more tasks that require them to take words apart, use more complex analogies to analyze words, and apply visual analysis strategies.

Includes: 37 tasks including 165 picture cards, 39 word cards, and 77 category cards. Skills: clapping out syllables, matching rhyming words, sorting words, beginning and ending consonant digraphs and blends, inflectional endings, compound words, contractions, spelling patterns of high utility phonograms, vowel patterns including digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled vowels.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530050

Set 1: Transitional Level - Retail Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.95 *Limited Time

Labels for Literacy Task Cards Set 1: Word Building

A set of 95 labels identifying each task by set, name, and instructional level.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530600

Labels for Literacy Task Cards Set 1: Word Building - Retail Price: $8.95 Sale Price: $6.95 *Limited Time

Our Literacy Task Card Labels use Avery White Address Labels for Inkjet Printers 8162, 1-1/3" x 4". You may download the artwork for the labels and print them yourself free of charge if you prefer to make your own!

Download the Set 1 task card labels and print yourself!

Mini Storage Baskets (Set of 96)

These mini baskets are a perfect way to keep Literacy Task Cards organized in your classroom.

Have your students use the storage baskets when performing the literacy tasks.

Includes 96 Baskets, 6.25 inches long x 5 inches wide x 2.125 inches high.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #12210020

Mini Storage Baskets (Set of 96) - Retail Price: $54.95 Sale Price: $47.95 *Limited Time

Set 2 - Vocabulary Development

The Set 2 Task Cards focus attention on the importance of productive activities for building students concept knowledge in order to develop vocabulary.

Students learn analytical strategies for classifying words according to meaningful relationships, promoting their ability to think by analogy.
As students learn words, they group them together into knowledge domains. It is through these categorical associations that new readers understand deeper layers of meaning in words.
The classification activities in this set of task cards will focus your students' attention on language concepts such as meaning categories, analogies, synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, and suffixes.

Literacy Task Cards Set 2 - Vocabulary Development: All 3 Levels

Get all three Set 2 levels and save.

Teaching Resource Center SKU 53530490

Set 2: All Three Levels - Retail Price: $89.95 Sale Price: $76.95 *Limited Time

Literacy Task Cards Set 2 - Vocabulary Development: Emergent Level

Emergent Level: students learn how to sort pictures by meaning categories, such as things that fly and things that do not fly, or by beginning and ending sounds. Students match pictures and words, sorting them under meaningful categories.

Includes: 21 tasks, including 123 picture cards and 49 category cards, give students opportunities to sort pictures of everyday objects into categories that gradually increase in difficulty.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530460

Set 2: Emergent Level - Retail Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.95 *Limited Time

Literacy Task Cards Set 2 - Vocabulary Development: Early Level

Early Level: students expand their concept knowledge, sorting more complex pictures and words under categories such as living and nonliving, sink and float, and punctuation sorts. Students learn to use simple analogies for classifying concepts by specific relationships.

Includes: 40 tasks, including 123 picture cards, 198 word cards, and 33 category cards. Students sort both pictures and words by school- based concepts such as reptiles vs. mammals and solids vs. liquids. They also look for relationships between common objects such as (Letter:mailbox = coin:piggybank); thus, they begin to employ the concept of analogy.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530470

Set 2: Early Level - Retail Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.95 *Limited Time

Literacy Task Cards Set 2 - Vocabulary Development: Transitional Level

Transitional Level: the analogies become more complex. For example, antonyms and synonyms become categories for forming relationships between word meanings. An example of an antonym task would be: whisper:yell = cheap:expensive. As with all levels, the student writes how the words are related.

Includes: 32 tasks, including 209 word cards and 49 category cards, have students sorting only the word cards and the analogies increase in complexity. They start by matching root words to the words with prefixes or suffixes added, and identify analogies and apply them to concepts such as part to whole (petal:flower = skin:potato), synonyms, antonyms, and things that go together. Finally, they match words with their synonyms and antonyms.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530480

Set 2: Transitional Level - Retail Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.95 *Limited Time

Labels for Literacy Task Card Set 2: Vocabulary Development

A set of 95 labels identifying each task by set, name, and instructional level.

Teaching Resource Center SKU #53530610

Labels for Literacy Task Card Set 2: Vocabulary Development - Retail Price: $8.95 Sale Price: $6.95 *Limited Time

Download the Set 2 task card labels and print yourself!