Daily 5 Reflections

As we head towards the end of our first Semester of implementation with the Daily 5 and for some of us CAFE as well, it seems like a natural point to stop and reflect on what we have noticed in our classes and across our school.

As a Teaching Learning Project (TLP), we are well underway with our data collection and the results have proved very interesting. Overall we are seeing students progressing through the reading levels and increasing their stamina rapidly. I had some great advice recently from Leanne Woodley, a Consultant from AIS, about mapping our journey against the Quality Teaching Framework for further evidence of our changes in practice and pedagogy and I look forward to our staff having a chance to look at that in Semester 2.

What is difficult to measure are the attitudinal changes in both, us as teachers and in our students, towards Literacy learning. Should anyone ask me to express these in numerical value then I shall be a disappointment to them! I know, that I know, that I know, that the change is HUGE! To say we are better Literacy teachers as a result of our research and implementation of Daily 5 and CAFE is simply the biggest understatement ever. We have a new professional language, we have a new understanding of methods of managing the Literacy session and if that wasn't enough, we also have a greater understanding of how children learn to read and write and what teaching strategies we can use to move them along.

Our students as well have a new language for describing themselves as Literacy learners. They have a new understanding of their responsibilities in the learning process and they have a whole new world of strategies to draw on as they practice reading and writing. When I hear a student tell me their goal for improving their reading and to hear them actually articulate the strategy they will use to achieve that goal....well, I just get a wee bit excited! To hear a student during read to someone ask their reading partner if they need time or a coaching session and then have them share possible strategies with their buddy....well, I just get a BIG bit excited! To see and hear them cheer in classrooms when their teacher tells them it's Daily 5 time...well, that's ENGAGEMENT!!!!

When I see and hear our Prep students, our 4 year olds talking about Daily 3 in the Prep class, I just become amazed at what our little ones are capable of. Last week I had a visit from Finn. He showed me his Daily 3 card with a stamp on each activity. He told me that for Read to Self, he read a story using the pictures. For Word Work, he wrote his name in the sand and for Work on Writing, he traced a hopping picture. Frankly, he blew me away! What a bonus for our Kindy teachers next year when these little ones come all prepared!

As we get ready to launch into a book study of CAFE and hear from our colleagues who are already on the CAFE path, I think it timely to celebrate our achievements. A huge thanks to all those educators out there on twitter who have set a great example for us, shared resources with us and answered our seemingly simple questions along the way. You have all been an invaluable support. To the most amazing staff in JS, your commitment to research, trialling, sharing and always seeking to be better teachers is simply outstanding.  It's onwards and upwards Ladies!

Would love for you to all share your thoughts to date on our TLP. Just like the language we are teaching the students at the moment in evaluating lessons they are engaging in, let's go with:

3 what I love/learnt/went well things about Daily 5 and 

1 would be even better if..... 

Look out for chapter 1 of CAFE coming your way by Friday!

Deb

Chapter 4 - Read to Self

Chapter 4 – Read To Self
“Just adding more time and space for independent reading is not enough. I’m advocating a carefully designed, structured reading program that includes demonstrating, teaching, guiding, monitoring, evaluating, and goal setting along with voluntary reading of books students choose…When an independent reading component is added, test scores go up.”
- Regie Routman
 
Having students read to themselves is the first step in the Daily Five and is the foundation for creating independent readers and writers. When implementing this step, The Sisters advocate the use of the gradual release of responsibility model which involves the repeated describing, modeling and practicing of behaviours we want students to learn.
 
The explicit descriptions of how to implement the Read to Self step are fantastic – like a really detailed lesson plan. This makes implementation super easy! Here’s an overview of the process described in the chapter:
 
Introduction
The first concept taught is that there are three ways to read a book:
 Read and talk about the pictures
 Read the words
 Retell a previously read book
 
Read To Self Day 1
 Brainstorm and  record why it is important to read to ourselves
 Brainstorm and record appropriate Read To Self behaviours
 Select student to model appropriate Read To Self behaviours
 Select a student to model an inappropriate way to Read To Self then have the same student change their behaviour to the appropriate way to Read To Self. For this task, The Sisters recommend selecting a student who you expect to engage in off-task behaviour.
 Practice Read to Self. Three minutes maximum – but cut it short if students are unable to focus on his or her book or stay in the one spot.
 Checking Back In. Review the chart with the appropriate Read To Self behaviours then have students reflect on their practice session. With their hand near their heart, give a thumbs up if they thought they were successful or put their thumbs sideways if they thought they could improve in an area.
 Repeat practice session then check back in once more.
 Review the lesson to summarise the key points.
 
Read To Self Day 2 And Beyond
The lessons that follow are very similar to the first with the biggest change being an additional minute of practice time. By modeling and remodeling the desired behaviours, these behaviours become common knowledge and habits for all students.
 

As you can see, it’s very easy to implement the Read to Self step in our classrooms! I look forward to hearing how it is going in your classroom. I was perusing the awesome The Daily Café  website and the following video answers two questions which I considered while reading this chapter:
Sisters on the Spot: Two Important Questions
1) How do I get my first graders, who aren't really reading yet, to do all I'm asking of them during Daily 5 without relying on centres?
2) If I'm devoting so much time to literacy, how do I manage to fit content into our schedule?
 
Oh and we all know how much I enjoy decorating my classroom! Check out the following video for a great idea on storage and display of student’s book choices:
Design – Personalising Book Boxes
 
Finally, The Sister’s recommend the goal for primary students (I assume this would be Grades 3 to 6?) to be able to Read to Self for 30-45 minutes. Do you think this is realistic? What would be an appropriate goal for other Grades?
 
Looking forward to reading your responses!
 
Jenn