Daily Five

Daily Five is the structure for organizing the literacy block in classrooms. The structure is simple: the whole class meets for a short burst of instruction (7-12 minutes) depending on the age of students, after which students choose and move into one of the Daily Five tasks.

The length of each round of Daily Five is dictated by the stamina and independence of the students. Once student stamina breaks down, the round is over. Primary students usually settle in to three rounds of Daily Five and intermediate students into two rounds each day.

Because students are motivated, engaged, and highly independent with their Daily Five choice, the teacher in turn uses the entire block of time to assess, lead a small group lesson (two or three students), or conduct individual conferences. 

• Read to Self: Children reading to themselves is the first step in Daily Five. Read to Self is the foundation for creating independent readers and writers.  
• Read to Someone: Read to Someone is exactly that, readers get a chance to read to a partner. Readers become more self-sufficient and less reliant on the teacher for assistance. Students are taught coaching skills  and utilize the CAFE strategies to help themselves and their partner read their Good-Fit Books independently.
  
• Word Work: Work Work focuses on spelling and vocabulary work with children. Creating and maintaining a time during each literacy block to focus on words is critical to developing readers, writers, and communicators. Work Work provides an opportunity for children to over learn word wall words and high frequency words using materials such as white boards and markers, magnetic letters, stencils, beans, playdough, color markers, etc. 
  

• Work on Writing: Work on Writing is the writing component of Daily Five, which provides additional writing support for children in order for them to become effective writers. During Work on Writing students work on writing of their choice and is separate from Writers' Workshop. Some of the choices for Work on Writing include: letter writing, opinion writing, lists, personal narratives, fact posters, etc. 
• Listen to Reading: Listen to Reading is crucial for developing fluency and vocabulary. Students benefit from this activity because they can listen to fluent reading of the story. Students that have difficulty tracking print can follow  along with their finger or bookmark to them track the text as they listen to fluent reading. 

10 Steps to Teaching and Learning Independence

One of the keys to success in our classrooms is to teach students to be independent. This high level of independence allows the teacher to continue teaching without interruption because the students are reading and writing the whole time. Students develop a sense of urgency regarding their own practice, as well as value the individualized attention they receive toward reaching their goals. Click here to find out more about the 10 Steps to Teaching and Learning Independence.

Good-Fit Books

Because we want our students to be highly successful and truly enjoy reading, they need to spend the majority of their time reading self-selected books with 99-100% accuracy.

Good-Fit books enable students to practice strategies while reading accurately, fluently, and with a high level of comprehension. Good-Fit books are the secret to outstanding stamina while students are reading.

I PICK

We don’t confine students to assigned reading levels but allow them to book shop for Good-Fit books every two weeks. Because students are expected to pick their own books it is important that we teach them how. We teach students to use an acronym known as the I PICK method to enable them to make excellent book choices that are a good fit for them. The I PICK method is simple and reflective:

1. I -  I look at a book (front and back cover, flip through inside, read a portion)
2. P - Purpose (Why would I read this? To learn about _____...To be entertained…)
3. I - Interest (Am I truly interested in this book?)
4. C - Comprehend (Do I understand what I am reading?)
5. K - Know all or most of the words (Out of 100 words, I should not miss more than one or two)

Here is a demonstration of the I PICK chant, and below, a demonstration of book shopping.

CAFE

CAFE is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expand Vocabulary. A CAFE Menu board is used to display reading strategies under each heading. It ensures that strategies are taught and practiced during focused mini lessons. This system includes goal-setting with students in individual conferences, posting of goals on a whole-class board, developing small-group strategy instruction based on emerging student needs and one-on-one conferring.  

Gail and Joan ("The Sisters") developed the CAFE system to support teachers as they:  

1. organize assessment data so it truly informs instruction; 
2. track each child's strengths and goals, thereby maximizing time with him or her;
3. create flexible groups of students, all focused on a specific reading strategy;
4. and help students remember and retrieve the reading strategies they learned.

CAFE further explained:

This document gives more information about the steps of CAFE:

• Comprehension: I understand what I read. Strategies that support comprehension include:
• Accuracy: I can read the words.
• Fluency: I can read accurately, with expression and understand what I read.
• Expand Vocabulary: I know, find, and use interesting words when speaking and in my writing.

Pensieve

One of the important components of our daily work with students is our conferring notebook that we refer to as our Pensieve. The Pensive serves as both an organizational structure for student grouping, student meeting calendar, data collection, touch points, and assessment. In this notebook, there is a tab for every student with notes on data collected during one-on-one conferences and assessments. For more information on touch points and assessments, click on the highlighted areas above.

During the upcoming school year, team members will transition from the use of the traditional Pensive which is our paper conferring notebook to an electronic pensive utilizing iPads that were purchased with grant monies. The Electronic Pensieve will allow the team members to save and track student data more efficiently.