Welcome to the Daily 5 Discussion! Here's a little overview of the first chapter to get the ball rolling...
The Daily 5 consists of:
1.Read to Yourself
2.Read to Someone
3.Listen to Reading
4.Work on Writing
5.Spelling and Word Work
"The Daily Five is a student-driven managment structure designed to fully engage students in reading and writing." (page 12)
On page 13, the Sisters go through and explain that the first weeks of school are dedicated to launching the Daily Five and instilling literacy habits that allow for independent work.
My question is for those of you that have already done this in your classroom how did you set up the Daily 5. What works and what didn't work? Were you able to do the Daily 5 everyday or every other day?
This book is what hooked me into wanting to teach again. I haven't taught in 16 years because I've stayed home with my kids. Last year I did renew my teacher's license so I could sub. A half-day kindergarten position came open for this fall in my kids' school and the principal asked me if I'd like to do it. I said no. But in the process of trying to help one of my children who is struggling with reading, i came across this book. After reading this, I decided to say yes to the half-day kindergarten! I am still working on the modifications considering my limited time with a half-day class, but I really am excited about teaching with their model.
I also have a question for people who have already implemented The Daily Five. My school has a 60 minute reading block time where we share students between grade levels and classrooms. Students are grouped by their reading levels. Classes with at or above grade level students are in larger groups and classes with below grade level readers are in smaller groups. Every grading period students can (an do) move, depending on their new reading level. Often times, a core group of students stays the same. With this already in place, will I be able to implement The Daily 5?
I am excited to hear more about what works. I implemented this last year with my sixth graders, and I was not happy with how I ran things...(they were a rough group which added to that). I am also interested in people who have done a room designed according to the sisters. I am planning on watching the dvd and setting up my classroom according to their theories, but I would love ideas/advice!
I'm curious if anyone has done Daily 5 in a scripted LA program.
My Reading First school has to follow Houghton-Mifflin to the letter except the writing portion (because it is so bad). My morning (95 min) is pretty much teacher-directed and scripted. During my guided reading, the other students have to follow a very restricted "must-do" list, which includes specific wordwork but no writing. Writing can only be done during WW. How could I integrate the Daily 5? I've been wanting to do ever since I read about it on PT.
I am wondering what is the best time to start? Would you start day 1, day 2 or Week 2 of school? I personally wouldn't start day 1...too hectic. Maybe not week 1 either...there are generally late entries at my school so you may not have all your students then. I am leaning toward week 2 of school since most students that are going to be in your class should be there by then. What do you all think?
I have been doing the daily five for two years now. Both in first and second grade. I don't start on the first day of school but usually within the first week. We begin with Read to Self... I intro the concept of what it is and then we go from there. To implement the entire Daily Five it usually takes 6 weeks and I recommend not trying to rush it. Practice, practice practice and patience patience patience and it will pay off big time!!!
As for using it with your already structured program, I think you will be able to implement some parts. I have made some modification to it for myself because I enjoy doing reading workshop, so I make that my "read to self" part of my day while I conference with students one to one.
I use the rest of the components along with some read to self during my reading block. We do guided reading at our school so I am meeting with small groups while the students are doing the daily five. What I usually do is pull students over to read with me and during their time in the daily five.
I love the Daily Five because I don't have to come up with a bunch of "busy work" for the children to do in "centers". They are working on their own writing, sometimes I give them guidance and sometimes it's their choice, they listen to books on tape and then respond in a journal or on a sheet of paper, Word Work is usually tied to our spelling for the week but I can change it up if want to include other phonics activities and partner reading is done with big books or any other book and of course read to self is self selection or a guided reading book.
I'm interested in learning more about this as well--this year our school is introducing an Intervention/Enrichment time in the afternoon for the last 45 min. of the day. It is seperate from our language arts block which is all morning and it is supposed to be language arts based. I'm thinking of implementing parts of the Daily 5 during this time while I meet with the low groups to "double dose" guided reading/writing. I can't do the same centers as I do in the morning b/c the kids will get sick of them!
As usual I'm posting the link to Mrs. Meacham's website. She uses the daily five and even includes pictures. http://www.jmeacham.com/ I'm looking forward to getting the book and reading more about it! Thanks for all the input!
I love the Daily 5 and will try to answer some questions (as best as I can!).
I do the Daily 5 everyday. It worked really well in my classroom. My students make their choices when they come in in the morning (3 choices a day-unless they were title or ESL-2 choices). They must do read to self or read to someone as a choice. I used the 100s pocket chart. Each student had a pocket for their name, and then 3 pockets after their name for their choices. I liked that it was visual. If they were meeting with me in a group, I had a color card in one of their choices (to show their reading group which were colors). Then they knew not to make a choice for that rotation.
mlbfirst-I think you could definitely do the Daily 5. You would have to have the same expectations for each group since students can rotate in and out based on their reading levels. Also you may want to revisit your I-charts and Daily 5 expectations more frequently-whenever needed and when groups change (every grading period).
cvt-You could do the Daily 5 during your guided reading time. The scripted "must dos" for word work could become your word work portion of the Daily 5. You would just call it "word work" instead of must dos". You could also add other word work activities. You wouldn't have to include writing. Many teachers do "the Daily 4" and keep writing separate. I started work on writing after Christmas break.
LHuff-Last year was my first year with The Daily 5. I didn't start until after a few weeks either. This year I will start on DAY ONE! I will not waste one day getting started. I broke the lessons up into smaller lessons than the Sisters teach in the book. They put 2-3 lessons into one day, where as I may only do one. For this reason I will start on day one!
Deer01-Here are my word work activities. I change them up through the year, and I don't have them all out when we first start the WW portion of the Daily 5.
magnetic letters
wikki stix
chalk on colored paper
stencils
painting with tempra paints, water colors
writing on white paper with white crayon and painting watercolor over the white crayon
read the room for blends, number of letters, digraphs, etc
stamps
word family stamps (our spelling is word families/chunks)
finding word family words in books and writing them down
another kind of magnetic letters
putting words in ABC order using a transparency
white boards
draw a picture of each word (the meaning)
I love Jessica Meacham's website! Her pictures of each of the Daily 5 components are great! These are what I use to mark word work and listen to reading bins. I also use them in the 100s pocket chart for my students' choices.
It's so important to lay the groundwork like they describe in the book.
That way, the students are able to develop the sense of urgency and the responsibility that they need to make the Daily Five work. The discussion about the "good fit" books is really good. The kids love getting involved in that. Another important thing is to let the kids model the correct/incorrect ways to read to self and read with a partner. The book suggests letting a child with difficult behaviors be the one to model trhe wrong behavior first, and then have the same child model the correct behavior.
I did the Daily Five for the second half of this year. I wasn't able to do all the preparation that the book suggests. But I felt like it went well because we did a lot of modeling of proper behaviors for centers at the beginning of the year. Many of the behaviors they learned for centers carried over to the Daily Five.
Thanks for the great information. When I go to Meacham's website and get the tour, I get a message that says -may not display properly because it was compressed by codec which is not supported on my computer--I have windows media player and can hear her voice, but can't see the video--any ideas from techies? Thanks!
As someone new to the Daily 5, I was wondering if it is applicable to fourth grade students/classrooms? I haven't previewed the book - so I'm not sure if it is primarily for the primary grades or if it could work in upper elementary classrooms as well. Any input from upper elementary teachers inmplementing this program would be helpful!
I'm not sure if this will help but...you could right click on the link to her video and "save as" to your computer. Then you could try opening the file from your computer? You may delete when finished then....just a thought.
I love this discussion! It helps put some reality to the book.
AD - what grade level do you teach?
I like the suggestion of starting on Day 1! I had wanted to try that this year. Since the lessons can be broken down and the beginning "stamina practices" are so short, it should be good to start right off.
Do you wait until each step, starting with Read to Self, is in place, or could you begin with the writing piece at a different time of the day while still developing stamina on Read to Self?
teacherchar,
Go to the website www.thedailycafe.com. They have tons of articles and video. I'm not sure if you can watch the video or not if you don't join, but one video I'm thinking of shows them teaching various thinks (like an I chart) to a 4th grade class. There were others as well.
Ok just want some clarification as I am new to all of this. Is daily 5 like rw and ww or is it totally different? If you do rw and ww do you do daily 5? If so how? I think I am getting all of this really confused. If someone can walk me through this I would sure appreciate it
How long do each of the daily 5 areas last? Do you have all of the children rotate to the next activity at the same time? I haven't purchased the book yet but plan to on my next trip to the city.
Jessica Meacham calls her daily 5 'literacy corners'. She didn't want to get into trouble with copyright laws I think. I just downloaded oodles of great ideas from her site lastnight.
I don't follow the D5 format, because I prefer to do reading workshop and writing workshop (I only have 100 minutes for literacy, including reading, writing, grammar/spelling, word study, etc).
But I do borrow a lot from the D5 approach when teaching my children to read independently and read with a partner. I love the D5 approach to teaching stamina! It goes like this:
create an I-chart
correct model
incorrect model
correct model
short practice session (stop after a few minutes OR as soon as the first student gets off-task, whichever comes first)
check-in
short practice session
check-in and share
I started with independent reading on our very first day of school (this was for grade 2). Here's my plan for the first day of reading workshop:
Launching Read to Self (from Daily Five, p. 111)
You guys have the best job in the world! (see Growing Readers)
Think-pair-share: why is it important to read?
What should children be doing during reading time – create I-chart (as per D5)
Invite a child to show a correct model what we should see when someone is reading
Incorrect model, followed by correct model
Building stamina – 4 minute practice
Check-in: what worked? What didn’t?
Model again
Building stamina – 4 minute practice
Check-in: what worked? What didn’t? (praise and appreciate)
Closure: you will have the chance to read every day in this classroom
Over the next week, I kept increasing the practice sessions. D5 has you stopping the class the instant that someone is off-task, so that no one can practice incorrect reading behaviours. Starting the second week, I stopped doing the mid-way check-in and just kept extending the independent reading time. We made a graph showing how long we read independently. The children were VERY motivated by the graph and they were independent much more quickly than my students have been in the past.
On the first day of week 2, I introduced read to a partner, using the same procedure.
I did love Mrs. Meacham's website. I have only read chapter 5 of the book. Truthfully, I was hoping that the Daily 5 will save me work, but as usual I worry about students being self-directed. I liked Mrs. Meacham's poster illustrating loudness of voice. How do you teach children to use soft voices. Another confession--because I have a loud booming voice, I think the students mimic my tone. It seems that I always have a loud class.
I am really liking the idea of starting the first day with the Daily 5! I think it will really motivate students to get back into the school mode. I really like the way you modified the Daily 5 to fit your teaching style -Random. Everyone has so much to offer and this is a great discussion! I am so glad that we have many of you that have tried it already! What a great resource all of you are!!
I got to thinking the other day about The Daily Five and how I could organize it in my classroom next year. So.. I did some retail therapy at my local teacher store! I bought this pocket chart for the Daily Five. It is by Carson Dellosa and here is the link for it: http://www.carsondellosa.com/cd2/Pro...age=4&oid=1395
This is how I envisioned using the Daily 5 with the pocket chart:
I will put the words: The Daily Five at the top of the pocket chart. Then the first pockets going down the left side will be a picture of each of the choices for the Daily five. Then that will allow six students at each center. ( They will be able to put their card in the pocket next to the picture)
Do you think it will be okay to use "Work on Writing" for reading responses? I teach 2nd grade and we do reading responses once a week. BTW - I have a separate time for Writer's Workshop.
I think the great thing about the Daily Five is that it is so adaptable. For instance, on our Art day, we have less time, so I only do 2 or 3 components of the Daily 5, only see my lowest groups. If I want to give a certain writing assignment, the kids can work on that during Work on Writing, and make sure every kid does that component that day. Or, you can totally skip the Daily 5 if you want to do whole group reading activities that day. I do think it's important to make sure the kids know the correct way to do each component, and to model correct behaviors, but you can deviate from it once in a while.
I have been trying to figure out how I would be able to supply kids with listening to reading if most chose to go there. Now I don't have to...duh...why didn't I think of that?
Like you said, kids seem to still be enrolling that first week of school.
I am not done with the book yet (maybe they address this in the book???), and we actually do start school this year on a Monday, so I would have a full week to start....
but I am thinking also of beginning the second week of school.
Still not sure if Daily 5 is worth looking into for fourth grade. I currently use a Reading Workshop approach and I'd be interested in blending in Daily 5, but not sure if it's geared to more primary age students. Is anyone out there using it for upper elementary kids? Please let me know! Thanks!
I haven't heard of anyone using it above third grade, but I am sure you can adapt some of the components to work in your classroom. The way the book models the different activities for the students is what I found most useful. I implemented pieces of the Daily 5 this year. I have a 60 minute reading block so we did read to self/listen to reading/word work/read with teacher. I did it as a rotation so each student went through the rotation each day. Do what is comfortable for you. Like I said the management and modeling piece in that book is HUGE. My first grade students built more reading stamina than I could have ever imagined!
I used www.starfall.com on the computer for listening to reading sometimes. You can also have parents or paras read to them once in a while. I once saw a website that had celebrities reading childrens' books online. I don't remember what the website was, but it would be worth looking into.
I also vary my listening center by having students listen to stories and using Lakeshore listening center material.
I have been using daily 5 for 2 years and love it. I agree with those statements above that you should not rush it. I did my first year and it did not run so smoothly. I followed the book very closely this year and things went much smoother.
I still have a problem with read to someone. I cant keep students on task long enough(1st graders). Any ideas?
I read the entire book in nearly one sitting! I will be new to 2nd grade next year (after being out of the classroom for 5 years) and am super excited about trying out Daily 5!
I am so nervous about trying it out though! I have some questions after reading that I am hoping someone can help me answer.
If I remember correctly there seemed to be some discrepancy in the book (from where it is mentioned in the text vs. the appendix in the back) on what order to introduce the daily 5...what order would you all suggest?
I have noticed that several people on PT only do the daily 3 or 4 depending on what works for their schedule...what would you suggest be the ones that students should definitely do every day? I know that choice is a big part of daily 5...but what if a student really needs to work on writing or really would benefit from listening to reading?
I plan on doing guided reading groups while the other students are doing Daily 5...this would probably make it so that students would meet with me for a daily 5 session (i'm thinking about 15 minutes)...so, how do you determine which daily 5 those children miss out on?
I know I have more questions but this is so long already...I have to find my notes from the book and I'll post again! Thanks in advance!
I have used this for two years and love it. I didn't follow the book so closely the first year and it did not run smooth. The 2nd year I did and what a difference. Let see if I can answer some questions.
to introduce the daily 5...what order would you all suggest? I like the back of the book where it gives you the first 25 days. I use it like a bible and things seem to go better. So I would try that.
I have noticed that several people on PT only do the daily 3 or 4 depending on what works for their schedule...what would you suggest be the ones that students should definitely do every day? I use read to self, word work, listening to reading everyday. I put myself as a center becuase i do guided reading groups to. The 5th rotation I switch between computers (students have to use everyday per administration) and work on writing. Since I teach 1st grade I choose the centers for them. It works better for me. I do however give them several choices of activities to do in centers.
I have 20 minute center rotations. The children go to centers based on their guided reading group. I know this is not how the book tells but it is how it works for me.
How many center rotations do you do a day? Also, at the listening center... do you choose the story or do you have several choices available. If you choose and you do more than one center rotation a day, then you have to switch out the story a couple times a week, right? Thanks for everyone's help!
The way I understand it (still in the process of reading the book) the kids rotate between the 5 choices and that is the morning block. In between each choice is a minilesson or share time and while they are working I am having guided reading groups. I plan on doing Math, Science, S.S, etc. in the afternoon along with my developmental centers~art, housekeeping, blocks, etc.
My center rotations depend on how many guided reading groups I have. This past year I did 5 rotations 15 -20 minutes each. I can spend this much time with guided reading becuase I to most of my teaching with the small groups rather than whole group. I also have an extra 30 minutes of phonics instruction. So overall I spend more than 90 minutes for reading instrution.
I do something a little different with my listening center. At first I tried individual tape players but with 1st graders they were all soon broke. I have one station for listening set up for 5 children. Mondays the children get to choose between several books to listen to. Tuesday -Thursday I use Lakeshore listening center activities (these are awesome and it holds children accountable during center time). Friday the students listen to a story that I choose and respond to the story. I give them several choices of how they can respond. It takes awhile to train the students how to respond but its worth it. Ihope this helps
Thanks rachg8r... so, your groups get to each "center" daily? Wow, with everything I have to teach I'm not sure if I can give that much time to centers.
What do the Lakeshore listening activities have them doing? Thanks so much for your help.
I can devote that much time to centers because I do most of my reading instruction in those small groups. Trust me some days I don't devote that much time. My state requires 90 min of reading instruction and 30 mins extra for those students at risk. I wish I had more time for science and social studies.
The lakeshore centers range from phonics activites, comprehension, fluency, context clues. try lakeshorelearning.com (I think) I also use some of their instant phonics centers for my word work time.
I have dabbled with Daily 5 this past year and am trying to perfect it this year. When I went to the Sister's presentation this past spring it was interesting to note that they both said that most k-2 teachers(it sounded like this was including themselves as well) are only doing the daily 3 each day and that grades 3 and up were doing the Daily 2. However, the Daily 5 are offered each day. In my second grade classroom I am planning to offer all Five each day, but make it a requirement that over a course of two days all of the Five should be visited.
So on Monday Carlos may choose: Read to self, writing, Words
and on Tuesday he would have to go to: Read to someone, listening and Read to Self again.
I am going to caution that part of the beauty of this program is the choice that the children get. As educators, we must remember that children need to have some input into what they will learn and do each day. I noticed some posts that are saying that the teacher is making the choices for the students and that may lower the motivation for the students- I know motivation is always a problem in my classroom b/c of lack of parent support and many other factors that are out of my control. The Sisters even address this problem in the back of their book under frequently asked questions...
Plus, AD I love your organization, but I noticed as I read your piece on your hundred chart that you are having the children come to you as a choice. Is that for the full 30 minutes then?? I am wondering why you started doing this? I cannot find in the book where this is a part of the Sister's "plan". Did you find meeting with groups and trying to finish a choice too frustration for your students or?? I am just wondering the "why" for this.
It took me about 5 minutes or more to figure out where the daily five was on Meacham's website... so I thought I would help others... it is under Literacy Corner on the menu. Hope that is helpful!
teacherchar-You could definitely use the Daily 5 in fourth grade! You may want to omit Listen to Reading if your students don't need that. I know a couple third grade teachers who use the Daily 5 and have their students do Read to Someone. Usually two students will be partners for awhile and read a chapter book together. Sometimes fluent readers will read to struggling readers (if the book is too challenging). Your word work could be words/vocab from other subjects or vocab from guided reading books. Work on writing and read to self would be very easy to do.
Teachfun-I teach first grade. I think we focused on Read to Self until they were up to at least 10 minutes. Then I introduced Read to Someone. We would model and build stamina for Read to Self, and then the same day (but later on) we would do the same for Read to Someone. After they had those down really well, I introduced Listen to Reading. We didn't build stamina for Listen to reading though, because only 4 students can do Listen to Reading at a time.
LASS-My students have up to 4 choices a day. Many only have 3 choices a day though due to ESL reading group, title, and guided reading with me. That means they will not do all 5 choices in one day. They are required to do read to self or read to someone everyday though. Yes, they rotate at the same time. If not, it would be chaotic. I ring the chime, we meet on the carpet, and then I dismiss them to their next choice.
rosieteaches-The only time students should be talking during the Daily 5 is during Read to Someone, and not everyone would be doing Read to Someone at the same time. It's important to have them model the correct and incorrect ways-including voice level! You may want to consider making a poster for voice level. The Daily 5 will save you work! My colleagues couldn't understand at the beginning of the year why I had SO MUCH LESS work to do! I wasn't planning and preparing centers every week. It was great! I worried about my students being self-directed too, but that's what is so awesome about the Daily 5. It teaches students to be independent. If this helps...my principal observed my Daily 5/guided reading time this year, and he told me (and wrote on my eval) that he had NEVER seen a first grade class work so independently. Mind you...this was my first year teaching first grade! You have to have faith in the Daily 5, build stamina, group your kids during build stamina as soon as someone starts goofing around or is off task, and model correct and incorrect behaviors.
twiceblesses-I'm going to use my work on writing choice as reading response in first grade. We have a separate writers workshop time too. Also in my district they do a lot of reading response in the intermediate grades, so I think it's a great way to introduce them. My first graders did reading response for work on writing this past year.
tadlockrl-Your enthusiasm will help create a sense of urgency. Also for building stamina make a visual graph so you can keep track of their minutes. They love to see their minutes increase daily, and if their minutes decrease one day (more off task, etc) they will work harder the next day.
Cuddlebug-Here is my order for introducing the Daily 5:
Read to Self
Read to Someone
Listen to Reading
Word Work
Work on Writing (after Christmas break) I will do it sooner this year.
My students were required to do read to self or read to someone everyday. For me the most important are those two and word work (first grade). I don't determine what choice my students miss when they meet with me. My only requirement is the do Read to self or read to someone everyday. I stress the importance of reading.
GoTeachers-my students have 4 choices a day-although for most it's 3 because of guided reading, ESL, and or Title. For Listen to Reading I have 4 tape recorders with one story in each. I change them once a week. Next year I think I'm going to have 2 stories at each and teach the students how to change the tape.
tripteach-On the 100s chart, if they are meeting with me for GR instead of doing the Daily 5 for a choice, it's only for 15 minutes. My rotations are 15 minutes each. I wouldn't have time for 30 minutes in first grade and with the amount of guided reading groups I had. They just wouldn't have a choice during that time.
Here's an example:
Sarah-Read to Self, Yellow group (guided reading group), Listen to Reading, Read to Someone. She would have a small paper with each of those choices going across at her name on the chart. The yellow group would be a piece of yellow cardstock paper. Each choice would be 15 minutes. If she doesn't finish a WW activity, she could finish it the next day if she chooses WW as a choice. Whoever is in the yellow group would have a yellow cardstock paper in the slot for their second choice. It's a visual so they know not to make a choice and will be meeting with me instead. We are required to meet with guided reading groups, so that's what I do during the Daily 5. I don't conference individually like the Sisters do-there's no time!
AD your advice is great! thanks for answering my and everyone elses questions. In you opinio how many days does it take for the studnets to get into the groove of one station (before introducing the next). I teach 4th grade. I was thinking 3 days. I know it will depend on the kiddos. I tend to want to move things and want to make sure I do this right, not fast. Thanks!
info.! AD....question....since only 4 kids can listen to reading at a time, what if more kids pick that as their choice at once? Or do you not let them choose and you set the sequence for them?
Forgot to add that. I'm thinking it would be much less chaotic for me to pre-decide each kids choice order. I'd love for them to make their own choices but I can't figure out an easy way for that. I don't have many listening stations. Any suggestions?
Could you explain more on your Work on Writing choice. What kind of reading responses did you have your first graders do? Did they complete a form or write in a notebook? Did they turn something in at the end of the week for you to see what they did during this choice?
Thanks!
I implimented the D5 in my first grade class this year and have absolutely fell in love with the program. It was much easier than I anticipated. I followed the 25 day program at the back of the book as well. My question is this, when do you begin teaching your reading series? In the D5 you don't work in small group reading until the 5th or 6th week. Are you doing whole group reading or are you waiting until you are ready for small groups? I waited until the 6th week and it worked well.
Thanks for that question olph25 ~ that's exactly what I was wondering. Our first graders switch classrooms for reading starting on the 2nd day of school. I want to take the time to implement the 25 day program, but I also need to be pulling small groups. How does that work?
As you can see, I love the Daily 5 and love talking about it!
tadlockrl-I can't remember exactly how long it took before I would introduce another choice. I went slowly with introducing and building stamina, because I wanted to make sure my students would be successful with the Daily 5 when I started pulling reading groups. That is what will make it successful (or not)-the amount of time you spend building stamina and making your expectations clear. I want to say it was AT LEAST a week or slightly more before I would introduce another choice. It takes awhile to build stamina-especially since my first graders started Read to Self with about 2 minutes of sustained reading, and I wanted to get them to at least 15 minutes! The more time you take at the beginning, the less problems you will have later on. It's more than worth it to take it slow at the beginning.
TLL-Yes, there were many times when more than 4 would choose Listen to Reading. In that case, I would ask if anyone was willing to switch, and they were! There may have been one rotation when only 2 or 2 chose Listen to Reading, so I would switch their choices. It really wasn't a problem, and Listen to Reading gets less popular as the year goes on-once they are really able to read independently. Their favorite choices become Read to Self and Read to Someone. I always let them make their own choices. That is a very important part of the Daily 5, and that's what can help make it successful. My students LOVED having choices.
TLL-If you can find a way to let them make their own choices, I would do that. That's really important! If you look down at another post by me, I've written about how my students make their own choices, and it's not chaotic at all. They make their choices on a 100s chart when they come in in the morning.
KarenP-I kind of neglected Work on Writing this year, but I plan to focus more on it next year. I have a sheet I made up for their reading responses (prompts). I'd e-mail it to you, but it's saved on my school files in a program that is not compatible with my home computer. Here are some of the responses (and I have a picture to go with each response). I'm going to laminate a sheet for each student and have them tape it to their writing notebook. This past year I just had a chart in the classroom with the reading response choices...
Draw and write about a character
Draw and write about the setting
Write about the problem and solution
Draw and write about the beginning, middle, and end
There are 4 or so more, but I can't remember them. I will post them when I get home tomorrow.
I didn't have them turn them in, I looked at them occasionally. Next year I'm going to require them to do one a week, and I will check them.
olph25-I did shared reading as a whole group from the start, but I didn't start guided reading groups until about the 6th week. I will do that again this coming year. It's important to start the Daily 5, introduce each choice, and build stamina before allowing the kids to work independently while you meet with groups.
mlbfirst-I'm not sure how you could start pulling groups immediately without introducing the Daily 5 and building stamina. What would your students be doing while you pull groups if you weren't doing the Daily 5? Is it possible to to not pull groups for at least a few weeks? I couldn't imagine pulling groups from the start without taking the time to introduce the Daily 5.
Would you happen to have a pic of your Daily 5 hundred's chart with the choices on them? I am a very visual person. Thanks for all the info. Very helpful!!!
I know the term "sense of urgency" has been bandied about quite a bit in the last few years. I have always associated it with our Reading First/Improvement School as a "we don't have time to do fun things" (like RW) situation. Reading D5 and Routman's Teaching Essentials, the term comes up several times. How would you define it?
In the Daily Five, the authors are trying to get teachers to instill in the kids an urgent desire to become readers or better readers. I think it also has to do with teaching them to have a desire to spend as much time reading as possible.
Has anyone heard of the Cafe program by the sisters? I looked on their webiste but you have to pay inorder to get any information. What is it? How does it fit into the daily 5? Any information would be helpful!
Hi! I teach 1st grade, but on their website I found a download incorporating the daily 5 into a half day kindergarten schedule. Not sure if it would be helpful to you, but I know I always like to be aware if their is something that might speed things up.
CAFE is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expand Vocabulary
The downlaod is very helpful for undersatnding what it is and they also have a picture. It is all under free samples. They have workshops and a book should be out by next summer.
SteelCityMom, Thanks a million for the online story book readings! That is just amazing. I think I can set up possibility for 2 students to listen to stories on the computer as well as having a listening center for 4. I've also found my kids' VERY OLD walkman CD player that I thought one student could listen to. The online story books will definitely be most popular so I think I'll put a sign-up sheet for who will get the next opportunity to listen this way.
I wish I'd had those websites this past year. I had two SpEd students with very limited reading ability. This would have been such a fantastic opportunity for them to hear more language and reading. But, I'm sure I'll have plenty of need again this year.
Thanks to all for the wonderful posts on the Daily 5. I'd just finished rereading the book this summer when this line started. Now, I'm SOOO very excited to put it in place this year. Hearing from those of you who have used it makes feel so much more possible!
anyone have any suggestions for spreading students out in a small room with lots of kids? next year i have 32 students on roll, which means 32 student desks. i did get rid of my teacher desk, and have a very small table that i use when needed. i am getting rid of the big ugly table that has been haunting me in my classroom for two years (it just collects stuff). i plan on my student desks being put into groups, so that will help when i do guided reading.
anyway, there just isn't enough space for each student to have a reading nook. is it okay for me to have some students do their reading at student desks? of course, i would rotate who gets to sit where, in order to be fair, but i feel like my kids are missing out since there are SO many kids.
any suggestions are appreciated. it is a 5th grade class, so i would like the student desks to remain. i have asked about tables, but got a NO because of the budget (inner city school).
This is a great solution for only a few tape players. I have two computers set up with internet that the students can use for listen to read with these websites. Thanks!
Here is a video that I found on the Sister's website about:
Working with Kids Who Struggle with Independence during the Daily 5.
The video is located at the bottom of the page. http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/178.cfm
Those of you that have already implemented the Daily 5 in your classroom this past year- have you had problems with students not staying on task?
First of all -- Thank You!!! to all who have posted. I am wondering if you all have great classroom libraries or if you have other suggestions for books for the lowest readers. I teach 1st and the books for my earliest readers are expensive. I have augmented my library with poems from kindergarten, but it is hard to build stamina when some of these students go through 3 books/minute. I will need many books. I welcome all suggestions! Thanks.
I too will have a small room with 16 second graders. The same kids from last year, but we are moving into a smaller room. I put my desk against the wall and I'm moving their desks into table groups of 6 and 4.
Some of my students will have to sit at desks during reading. Last year some students actually preferred to sit at their desk versus the floor. And, then I had the kids who enjoyed sitting in a corner with a big book in front of them creating their own little reading nook.
This will be my first year with Daily 5 and I am thinking that as long as everyone can concentrate on what they are reading and that I really take the time to set it up well from the beginning, then it won't matter where they are sitting.
I also have 1st graders. I use the decodable books from my reading series for those students that are low. Also, most of them used the harder picture books even if they couldn't read they read the pictures and made up their own stories. This is part of how to read a book. So even if you have a lot of hard books the low readers will be ok if you teach the three ways to read a book. As far as the 3books/minute it just takes time for them to build the stamina. I allow my students to have between 5 to 10 books in their boxes. If they complain about having read them all. I suggest that they reread it using one of the other ways to read a book. After about the first month they seem to get it and I didn't have much trouble after that.
Thanks for sharing your expertise! I am wondering if you will start your D5 on the first day or if you wait a while? If you start right away, how do you stock your students' book boxes? Do you have a fairly accurate level or do you make a "best guess" for what books to give the students. Do they shop right away?
A group of 16 of us met last week to discuss D5. Many are going to try it next year. Our discussion just made more questions come to my mind this week!
I have used the storylineonline.net in my first grade classroom. It is great. Our computers have an automatic timeout after 8 minutes of "non-use" for security reasons. If the mouse isn't active the computer logs out. This can be a problem with the longer stories. I get around this when the students are listening to books by having the students wiggle the mouse occasionally while listening. I don't know if our computers are the only ones with this feature but thought it might help.
I am glad to help.This will be my 3rd year using the daily 5 and each year it gets better and better for me. I start the very first day of school. One reason is because I am not into doing a lot of "fluff" activities. I do getting to know you activities, creating rules, and all that kind of stuff but that usually takes a day or to. The second reason is because it takes 25 days to get the program up and running the sooner you start the better. The first year I did the program I didn't follow the program and it did not go smoothly for me. Last year I followed the back of the book to the "T" and it went so much better.
For the first week or 2 I fill the book boxes for the children using Harcourts (our reading series) decodable books. Once I have taught the how to read a book and how to pick a book lessons, we begin shopping for books. I have children shop for 5 to 10 new books each Monday morning. It is one of the things they do first thing in the morning when they come it. That seemed to work best for me. I tried to have them do it Monday during read to self but they seemed to spend to much time shopping and not enough time reading.
Please keep asking the questions. It helps me think of new things and keep it fresh in my mind.
One thing I am still struggling with is read to someone. So any ideas you or your group might come up with please share.
Thanks for the comment on the storyonline! Glad to know it worked well for you last year. I'm excited to try it. We got a smartboard in the classroom last year so the kids learned quite quickly to go move the mouse to save what was on the board! In fact, that became one of my weekly jobs (could call it "mouse control").
Rachg84 - this doesn't answer your question but probes it more. I'll have a "life skills" student (Special Ed young lady with very limited academic skills) in class next year. Coming from another state, she has never been mainstreamed! I wondered about incorporating her into the "read to someone" piece. Since my students have always been caring and helpful towards life skills students, I can imagine them enjoying reading to this young lady AND it would help me provide her with appropriate activities during her mainstreaming time. Any thoughts?
I think that's an awesome idea. The students have a chance to build self-esteem in their reading while providing her with some acadmeics. You could have her echo read with them. It could almost be made out to be a priviliege to read with her. For your stronger kids, you can have them help her sound out a word on each page or have them ask basic comprehension questions. It all depends on her abilities and attention span.
Hello,
I'm glad to hear that someone else will be using the decodeable books from their reading series for those lower students. I had my students help me sort books by themes and I made baskets with labels on them. I also printed off matching labels to place in each book. I'm hoping this will help my students keep our classroom library organized. I'm sooo excited to start Daily 5 in the fall. I plan on starting right away, but my co-workers want to start in January.
Hi Leftytoo2! I am sorry that it has taken me so long to reply back to your posting...I have been writing Science curriculum for our district and trying to get some summer-time in with my children! :-)
I wanted to let you know that I spent this past year implementing the Daily 5 in my half-day K classroom, and I truly enjoyed it! You are very wise to know that you'll NEED to make modifications; there is simply NO WAY to follow the Daily 5 to the letter with our time constraints. I felt so supported with "the sisters" model, and was able to "tweak" it to fit my schedule. I know that I will still be "tweaking" next year...still trying to find perfection! ;-)
Here are some things that I did with my Kindergarten Kiddos, just as an FYI for you...
*DEFINITELY spend lots and lots of time modeling, just like the sisters recommend. Sometimes...okay, all of the time...I feel like I am racing against the clock to get everything done, and done well. Therefore, I can be tempted to cut corners or take shortcuts, but it is SO worth the time you'll spend doing a SLOWWWW release of responsibility with the Read-to-Self, Write-to-Self, etc.
*Spend time thinking about the organization and physical set-up of your room and supplies. I lamented this, 'cause I knew that some precious time was lost as the kiddos all clogged up around the shelf, getting their writing boxes.
*I found that I was not able to do the meetings after each session of independent work. I did not have time to gather back at the carpet each time; rather, what worked best for me was to have a meeting before and after our Daily 5 work.
*I rotated the children through each component of the Daily 5 myself, but they had their choices built into Daily 5 in many ways...lots of choices in Word Work, where and what they would read and write, etc.
*I actually selected the books on tape for Listen-to-Reading. I felt it a bit too overwhelming last year, doing the Daily 5 for the first time, to have the 40 kiddos choosing from my books on tape. I couldn't figure out how to do this in the time we had for Daily 5. (Also, I don't have enough personal tape/CD players) I will tell you though, I was perfectly happy with how I set it up.
Hmmm....probably lots of other stuff I could add, but I'll let my daughter have the laptop now! :-)
Best of luck with heading back into the classroom Leftytoo2! You'll have a ball with Daily 5!
rachg8r - One idea I used last year in second grade for Listen to reading was Leap pads. I have collected a few over the years (6) and with their own headphones this is a great way to listen to reading! I put it out about once a month instead of books on tape...nice way to have a change!
tripteach- you and I are kindred spirits on the matter of choice. I so believe in this for children to promote motivation. I think taking the choice component part of Daily 5 is nearly as big as taking out reading to self.
First, thank you to those of you who have been so helpful in posting answers and ideas. My family and I were at the beach last week and I am just now getting back on track with my Daily 5 reading. I am not through with the book yet but have started a list of questions that I would like to throw out.
I actually used to use Daily 5 when I was teaching seven years ago before my children were born. Now I will be heading back into the classroom this year and teaching 2nd grade and am so excited to get this going from day one. I used to LOVE D5 and found my first graders (at the time) truly functioned so well on their own and I could get so much done with my Guided Reading groups.
So on to the questions:
When the sisters talk about doing "Check for Understanding" in Read to Someone they mention the kids hold little wooden checkmarks? Has anyone ever seen such a thing? I think it would be a great reminder to the kids about what they are supposed to be doing as the reading is taking place.
I too am a visual person so if anyone has a picture of their Pocket Chart for Daily 5 or other organizational tool I would love to see it. I used to have a check off sheet for each student that they would carry on a clipboard to keep track of what they had/had not done and I could check in on those but I like the idea or something that is easy to see from across the room and shows me in real time who is where.
I am going to be in the same boat when it comes to having a small classroom and I have always been used to having LOTS of space in my previous schools. So...logistically trying to figure out how to have comfortable space where the kids can sit and read is a challenge. Plus we have one of those fire marshalls who won't allow pillows, bean bags etc on the floor so I can't even throw those down if I do have the space. Anyone have any photos or suggestions about how they have worked with limited space and were you able to make reading corner/area etc?
For those of you new to the Daily 5 you can check out their website that has been posted here. On their page under "Resources 4 You' you will find some free downloads to use in getting started. Also, there is a download for the Cafe Menu that might be helpful to those that have been asking.
I want to thank all the responses so far, I have been using the Daily 5 for 2 years, but am always looking for ways to improve! This is an amazing board full of talented teachers! Thank you!
I used Daily 5 last year with my 1st graders -loved it! I had several EBD kids (no teacher because of cuts) and it worked fairly well with them - sometimes their choice for where to sit was my choice.
I used bags for the books - like the ones you can get in the grocery stores now (green bags). Sometimes the local stores will donate so many bags to you to use if you ask. These were hung over their chairs so they could be picked up.
Take the time to go slowly and practice, practice, practice. I am looking forward to this year after having practice at it last year.
I used a primary composition journal from Walmart for writing - they could expand on any of our writing or do their own writing - this had room for pictures also.
Have lots of different materials planned for word work and only use a few at a time - change frequently - we worked on our high frequency words and spelling words -
kids loved this time - had to break it up into different times during the day - no big block of time because of phyed and music schedules.
website and it's just awesome! Now I know where I can go for stories for my older kids (fourth graders) to listen to. Some of the stories are so darn funny--Al Gore is reading Brave Irene!
I am teaching a k/1 combo and I have never done Daily 5. I have been reading online and talking to teacher friend who is going to try this program too. Does anyone, who has used this program, done so with a combo class?
This will be my first year using the Daily 5 program. I am so happy to have found a discussion about it because I've had so many questions!
I will be receiving the at-risk 2nd graders for one hour each day. One of our Spec Ed teachers will come in during that hour to do small group instruction with me. I'm not sure if she'll be able to wait to pull her students while I train the class to do the Daily 5. That may be a dilemma for me because 2 of the students have IEPs and have to have a certain amount of Spec Ed instruction during the morning. I appreciate any of your suggestions. Thanks so much.
I to have an ESE teacher that pushes into my room. Mine came in and helped out while I started Daily 5. In the beginning, the lesson don't last an hour long so she took her group after we did the practice.
Another option for listening to reading is the site storylineonline.net
It is a site sponsered by the screen actors guild where well known actors/actresses read well known children's stories. I used it in my 2nd grade class and my students loved using the site.
I am starting the daily 5 with my 7th and 8th graders after seeing it work so well with two 4th grade classes. You have to make some changes to make this work for older kids but it will work.
word work choices:
write it/box write it (each letter in it's own box)
write it/build it (with reading rods)
write it/clap it (circle the number of syllables)
write it/ highlight it (newspaper & highlighter - highlight each letter)
write it/magnet it (magnetic letters on a cookie sheet or the white board)
write it/rainbow write it (markers, crayons, colored pencils)
write it/search it (word search from a free site)
write it/stamp it (letter stamps and ink pad)
shake it/write it (an plastic container with beans, feathers, little bottle caps, etc. and this weeks words printed on card stock)
write it/text it (laminated iPhone templates & dry erase markers or crayons)
write it/type it (on the computer)
I homeschool 4 kids so each has his own word list each week - this is so wonderful because I can float from learner to learner as needed
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06-20-2008, 06:28 AM
I wish I had more time for science and social studies.
