Book Study: Daily 5 Ch. 1

Daily 5 Chapter 1
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I originally read The Daily 5 in December 2011.  I wasn't quite ready to implement everything, but I was very excited about trying it.  By Spring Break, I was ready.  I reviewed The Daily 5 book and read The CAFE book and started after Spring Break.  I was not able to do a full implementation.  Partly because my students were somewhat resistant to the changes I was making and partly because we had a lot of end of year assessments to get prepared for.  I plan to start the upcoming school year off with Daily 5 right away so that students will not know reading to be any other way.

These are my responses to the questions for Chapter 1.

1. On pages 4-6, the authors present two different pictures of their classrooms. In thinking about and reflecting on your own practice, how would you characterize your literacy block? Does it look more like the first or second scenario, or is it somewhere in between? How will you change it?

Before implementing Daily 5, my literacy block was very much like the first scenario.  It had its ups and downs, depending on which behavior students were absent.  After introducing Read to Self, it was much closer to resembling the second scenario.  It was not perfect by any means, but a definite improvement.  I intend to use the management structure presented to address behaviors and expectations in all subject areas.


2. The typical teacher is very busy having students do lots of different activities. How is what you are having students do now in your classroom creating quality readers and writers?


The 2011-2012 school year was my first year in a regular education classroom.  Everything was new to me, so for small group reading time/stations, I just did what was already done by my team.  It seemed to me that the goal was to have the students doing busywork so the teacher can see small reading groups.  It took a lot of paper and a lot of time copying stuff every week.  Many of my kids soon figured out how to do the work without actually thinking about what they were doing.  I didn't see the benefit of what they were doing, other than they were kept busy while I saw my small groups. Once I implemented Daily 5 stations, my kids were excited about reading and writing.  They even asked to do Read to Self anytime they were done with other work throughout the day.  They would complain during Writing Block about doing writing.  Some of them would even sit there staring at their paper with nothing written, but once they had a journal to write all on their own, they were filling up the pages!


3. What sets the Daily 5 structure apart from what you are doing in your classroom?


Before Daily 5, my students were doing a lot of seatwork that I called stations.  Like I mentioned above, I started the year by copying what other teachers on my team were doing.  Once I switched to Daily 5, the kids were doing a lot more hands on work.  They loved doing Daily 5 stations and asked to do Read to Self at other times throughout the day.  I loved seeing them read independently.  It was fabulous hearing them talk about a book they found that was not a "Good Fit" book and the reason why they knew that.


Check back next Wednesday for Chapter 2.