Many of you in the Seattle area may be familiar with the Daily Five, written by the Kent sister teaching duo. Since my school and much of my district is moving to Writers' Workshop, the Readers' Workshop model is also gaining in popularity. Several of us are now implementing the Daily Five as our reading workshop. I love the Daily Five because it involves really teaching kids the routines, and I have some challenges with bringing all my kids on board.
The Daily Five isn't a curriculum, but rather a framework to teach kids independence in authentic reading and writing for 15-30 minute blocks, during which the teacher can teach small groups and confer with students. The book outlines the philosophy and day by day plans to get kids working independently in 20 days. The crux of the plan is that students will gain stamina every day, approproximately one or two minutes more each day.
However, my second graders, who are mostly in year two of their implementation of the Daily Five, are stuck at around 5 minutes before off-task behaviors begin in more than one cluster. I know other teachers have seen their students' stamina vary as well. They do so well on Friday, but then comes Monday and Tuesday and they can't do it anymore. I have since encouraged students to practice our read-to-self or independent reading behaviors at home too (stay in one spot; keep eyes in your book; read quietly; get started quickly; have a quiet body; respect other readers; etc.). I'm trying to be patient while expressing a sense of urgency about their independence. I feel stuck between holding them accountable and building a safe learning environment. Oh, and I have four students who are none readers, like even with a level A book they can't really read it and probably seven who can't read most C or D books. Then there are a group of very high students as well.
AHH!
Daily 5
Hi,
I share similar experiences you describe with this system. The non-readers have difficulty building these behaviors and understandably have less stamina. Many students require guidance throughout the literacy block as they are not able to self manage. This is my third year with this system and I have tweaked it a bit. My concern is that the students who have the most difficulty are having to fit into a system where they do not currently have the skill subsets required for optimal use of the every "choice" in the Daily Five. I want to always rush to start reading groups, but there are always a handful of kids who are not ready.
At first these students require more direct intentional time with an adult.
Group these kids together and their group lessons focus on building stamina on maybe 3 of the dailies
Maybe this group also "works on writing", but on a response sheet that you create related to a story they have all read.
Do you have adequate listen to read material? We have a license to Tumblebooks and RAZ. These help teachers select material to listen to and engage the reader.
Put together simple poetry pocket folders for each book box. Start with recognizable rhymes and songs for Grade 1 and add additional poems for each season or content related poetry. The students love these.
We also have a license for Learning A to Z where you can download and print leveled material. Guide them to select from pre-selected baskets to ensure proper selection.
Gotta go...grandson waking up. Good Luck
Thank you for the ideas...now more questions ;-)
Hi MKGorine,
Thank you for your response. It's funny because as soon as I read the word Tumblebooks, I was almost positive that that was on a list of resources I haven't used yet from my district. And it was. Instead of responding to you, I got in contact with my librarian so I could figure out how to use it. She'd without a doubt told us about it before. Apparently my husband, also a teacher, uses Tumblebooks too. The literature on the site is such high quality literature! I cannot wait to get kids on there!
From what I read it sounds like you're saying that in your class students with good stamina and independence are working independently on the pieces of the Daily Five that have been introduced or perhaps all of it. Then you gather just the students who need more direction and they get extra mini-lessons and stamina practice under your direction. That would mean that maybe 16 students are working independently on read to self for 25 minutes, but 10 students are getting a quick mini-lesson and then a practice session to match their stamina. Maybe this smaller group is getting two or three short mini-lessons (Work on writing: writing friendly letters; Word Work: practice writing sight words; Read to self: writing response sheet, etc.) along with two or three stamina building sessions.
My classrooom experience is a little atypical; I am a English language teacher participating in a co-teaching model pilot for the first time and I don't get to call all the shots. We have started guided reading in two out of three of the classes I co-teach in. In one classroom, we have students introduced to listen to reading and work on writing and they have been much more successful and independent. In the other classroom we have not introduced listen to reading, which probably has a lot to do with their difficulty to work independently. Then of course the later, younger class has more difficult students and more non-readers to boot. We probably shouldn't have started guided reading so soon for the later class, second graders, with both teachers, me and the classroom teacher, because the kids' stamina isn't there and they don't have enough literacy options right now.
I think I will implement the poetry as shared reading into our shorter mini-lesson as well as push to get students on listening to reading and Tumblebooks.
Cheers and thank you again!