I love the quotes at the beginning of each chapter because they set us up for what's to come as well as raising a thought bubble in our minds about how and why we do what we do. I love being challenged in my thought process and I believe it helps me to grow in my understanding, when I have to actually defend or provide an explanation of what and how I teach, even if it is to myself more often than not!
In this chapter The Sisters look at the process they use to move from management to principled habits. The core foundations of the Daily 5 are:
- trusting students
- providing choice
- nurturing community
- creating a sense of urgency
- building stamina
- staying out of students way once routines are established
I will leave it to you to read the chapter in more detail. Below I have just pulled out some of the points I found most interesting.
Trust
Trust is what makes the Daily 5 work. The Sisters say that when trust is combined with explicit instruction, students acquire the necessary skills to become independent learners. They will continue to learn even when they are not being managed by the teacher.
Choice
Children love structure and routine and the Daily 5 manages this whilst still allowing for choice. Children have choice over the order in which they will participate in the Daily 5 activities as each activity occurs simultaneously. The order they choose varies from day to day, depending on their goals, mood and motivation. Students plan their days with a few questions in mind:
- What are my goals in reading/writing?
- What will I do first?
- Whom will I work with?
- What will I accomplish?
- What was I working on yesterday that I want to continue today?
Purpose + choice = motivation. This sums up what our students need to learn in our classrooms.
Community
The Daily 5 requires an effort in creating and maintaining a healthy classroom culture.
Sense of Urgency
The Sisters believe as I have for some time now that when people, including children, understand the reason for a task it provides motivation and encourages perseverance. When beginning with the Daily 5 The Sisters always start with explaining 'why' each activity is important.
Stamina
Building stamina works with even very young students. Stamina in reading to yourself activities is what allows teachers to work with individuals or with small groups in a sustained and focused way without being interrupted. It requires explicit teaching and instruction to build students' stamina.
Stay out of the way
When children understand what is expected of them, they've practiced strategies and built stamina, The Sisters say it's time to stay out of the way! The aim is for students to read, make decisions on their own and monitor their own progress. This can't happen unless we get out of the way and give them a chance to do this in a safe and supportive environment such as our classrooms.
Some of these foundations will make us look at ourselves....giving up control is a tricky thing for most of us teachers, however, the rewards are huge if we give it a go!
Which of these foundation principals do you think you would find the most challenging?
Do you have an example of how children knowing the purpose of an activity has increased student engagement?
Can't wait to see what others have to say on this Chapter. Looking forward to Kate presenting Chapter 3!
Debbie
8 comments:
The idea of staying out of the way is interesting and involves that trust. It gives such a great opportunity to observe what students are doing. Could it be an opportunity to have time to have meaningful discussions with kids about waht they are doing and the progress that they are making without it having to be extra time that you have to find?
I find trusting the students to be very hard especially for kindy. If i implement Daily Five with my class this is an area that i will personally struggle with, although i do love what i have read so far about Daily Five.
I am beginning to think about how I can bring Daily 5 into Prep. Whenever JS staff do PD I like to think about how it can relate to and be included in Prep, even if it is meant to be directed at primary grades. Love to hear your thoughts about how I can begin to set up some foundations for Daily 5in Prep. My ideas so far include:
explicit teaching of 'reading the pictures'; I-chart and explicit teaching of reading to self practices; and introducing EEKK.
Hello all,
Another great chapter from the sisters. I thought the anecdote about Jenna and the vice principals was a great example about the power of having a purpose!
Of the six foundation principals outlined, I find staying of student's way really difficult. A perfect example of this is my over-use of praise during silent reading: In 1H we have a routine that the first 10 minutes after recess are dedicated to silent reading. Students know the rules, they are doing everything expected yet every two minutes I find myself proclaiming "Well done 1H, everyone is reading so silently" or "Great job 1H, keep it up." This is fine until one day Debbie came in to speak to me and about 5-6 minutes into our talk I had to stop to say "S, go and sit down. H, that doesn't sound like silent reading!" Just like what happened to the sisters, my students are relying on my reinforcement to keep them on task! I've set myself the goal during silent reading to praise my class one less time each day until we get down to just the once at the end of the session. That way I can focus on giving explicit instruction to M by going through his sounds with him.
As for the question how children knowing the purpose of an activity has increased student engagement, the perfect example is today's writing lesson: We're learning about Narratives in 1H and students began working on their own narratives. A number of my students become overwhelmed when they have to write what they deem to be long pieces of writing (for them, more than a page). Yet after helping them generate some ideas I told them that they would be sharing their narratives with the other Stage 1 classes and that I would be publishing the best ones on our blog. Since they now had a purpose that was motivating to them, you could hear a pin drop during our writing session. One of my reluctant writers even wrote one whole page!
Clearly PURPOSE (explained above) + CHOICE (students made up their own plots) = MOTIVATION (and zero behaviour issues)
Hi All,
You're right Fay trust is a tough thing when we've all experienced THAT class and disruptive behavior. As a teacher its a difficult thing to let go of. What I'm getting from my reading is that that's a perfectly normal thing in most classrooms BUT it doesn't have to be. It comes down to a real commitment to maybe slow down in the implementation phase and do the necessary training and rehearsal for what Daily 5 time would look like. I can't wait to see how this works out!
Kate, I think you're absolutely on the mark. By getting to a point where trust and staying out of the way is second nature then you know you're there and you can start doing the interaction and individualized instruction with the kids.
Jen, your comments are very insightful. I love your examples that explain your point. So true, I'm guilty of that as well, in that we think we are doing the right thing in praising students for staying on task when in fact we are teaching them to rely on us and not allowing them to build an internal stamina. Who would of thought STAYING OUT OF THE WAY could be a good thing? That's the change in methodology right there because in the traditional view of a teachers role we are right there instructing, doing all the talking and directing.....oh changing methodologies here we come. I'm so loving all the ideas you guys are sparking at the moment. Can hardly wait to see where we end up!
Deb
Hi Michelle,
That's why you're a great teacher because you consider how things can work for your students....no matter how old they are! I totally agree that there are several of the strategies you could use.
EEKK would be great starting point. Even a book basket for the children with perhaps just simple picture books or wordless books for reading to self. I think you could also use the Read to someone else strategy by maybe using the photo booth on the Mac's and have the children record a video of themselves reading the picture book to the computer. Be great to see their comprehension of the picture reading on playback! Would be good to start stamina practice by using a sand timer or something similar to indicate that's how long your read...look at that book for before changing etc.
Deb
"Purpose + choice = motivation" (Ch 2, p. 21). I may be getting a bit ahead here, as this relates more to chapter 3. I really like the concept of 'good fit' books and the I PICK strategy appeals to me as a strategy to increase motivation. I'm interested in your thoughts about home reading assignments of teacher selected texts (to be read within a set timeframe, of course). I am dismayed when I see good readers turned off reading as a direct result of this practice and I am wondering if there are enough good reasons to support its continuance. For example: home reading programmes; class set text related to a topic being studied in History or Science.
If there are good reasons to continue these practices, how can we improve or increase the student's choice and/or sense of purpose?
I have introduced choice into my Literacy groups this term and have seen some great results. Initially I was worried that the students would not choose to ever do handwriting or EEKK over other activities such as blogging, word work on the IWB, and writing response using videos, but I have been very surprised! I did make a rule that the students cannot do the same activity more than once, but I provide 8 options. Before each rotation students come and place their photo under the activity they wish to do for that rotation. Previously in literacy groups I struggled to get students to work independently, and spent all my time on behaviour management. Now students are staying focused for longer, and completing their work (even the handwriting which they rarely finished before). Choosing their own activity has given them a reason to finish this as they freely choose to do it. I am definitely falling into the trap of the over praising though, as I am so excited to see them focused and on task. I love Jennifer's idea of praising them one less time each day until it becomes routine for them to do the right thing without the constant reinforcement. I'm now working on introducing the goals so students have a greater sense of purpose during the literacy block. I can't wait to introduce more daily 5 strategies in my classroom!!
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