The Daily 5

This is how we decide if a book is "just right" for us.

We are slowly, but surely getting our Daily 5 literacy routines into our muscle memory! We work hard to establish routines and expectations for our literacy block at the start of the school year, so that we are able to achieve all of our reading goals as the year goes on.  We started this year with learning how to choose a book that is "just right" for us. A just right book is a book that we can read and comprehend independently.  We use the "I Pick" strategy to choose books for our book boxes and books that we would like to read at home.

After we learned how to pick just right books and filled our book boxes with books we couldn't wait to get our hands on, we learned the routine for Read to Self.  Read to Self is a time when students can choose a just right book from their book box to enjoy independently. Ask your child what it means to "sit EEKK style!"

Now that we were well on our way towards building our reading stamina, we decided it was time to build our writing stamina as well. Enter Work on Writing! Work on Writing is a time during our literacy block when students can write in their writing journals. Each student has a list of writing ideas that are special to them at the front of their notebook and students are encouraged to write stories in any genre that they choose. So far we've written and shared character/problem/solution stories, fairy tales, personal narratives, poetry, songs, and mystery stories!

After we had mastered Read to Self and Work on Writing, we learned how to Read to Someone. Read to Someone is a way to practice both reading comprehension and fluency with a partner. When students choose a parter to read with, they decide if they are going to work on comprehension or fluency. If they choose comprehension, each partner checks for understanding after their partner reads aloud to them by saying ,"I heard you say..." and then describing the text that was just read aloud. If partners decide to work on fluency, they use a strategy called "I Read, You Read." Ask your child to show you how to do I Read, You Read at home!

Read to Someone Coaching Sheet

It was really hard to build our stamina for Read to Someone! There was SO much that we had to remember to do. From practicing fluency and comprehension to working cooperatively with a peer, Read to Someone can be a lot of work! Once we were able to Read to Someone for 10 minutes without a break, we added in an activity called "Coaching or Time." The listening student learned how to use a check list to help their reading partner when the partner got stuck on a tough word.

You might be saying, "Wait?! She said 'Daily 5.' I only heard about 3 different activities: Read to Self, Work on Writing, and Read to Someone!" Daily 5 is still a work in progress for us. Next week we'll learn about Listen to Reading and then the following week we'll learn how to do Word Work. Once we have all 5 parts of the Daily 5 up and running, our literacy block will run smoothly and we will be free to work together in small guided reading groups to read books at our instructional level with the support of a teacher.