Daily 5 Chapter 1

Yay! The book study from has started! Chapter 1 in the Daily 5 was about how they changed their thinking throughout the years to find a system that works best for them.

When I first started teaching, I was teaching Kindergarten. When we did centers, there was always a lot of paperwork/busywork that my para or I had to correct. It certainly took a lot of time!

This year, I tried something a little different. The district I was in used the Four Blocks Framework (NOT my favorite...I think all the teachers had trouble with it!). The framework splits the "Guided Reading" block into three sections, Before Reading, During Reading, After Reading.

The mini-lesson occurred in the Before Reading, children practiced in During Reading and we were supposed to 'assess' in After Reading.  One thing that I changed was that I had the kids do more of their thinking and writing on post-its!

I would demonstrate the skill, and the children would practice it and then we would talk about our thinking and post-its as closure.

I definitely think that this worked better than the center practice that I did when I taught Kindergarten, but I still felt that something was missing. I wasn't really conferencing with students, or having students read books at their independent/instructional level (actual guided reading groups are frowned upon in Four Blocks...everyone should be reading grade level text during "Guided Reading").

Next year, in my new district, we are using Literacy By Design. From what I have seen so far, it is very scripted...BUT, I have guided reading groups (the correct, Fountas and Pinnell way), so there will be time when I am working with small groups of students that the rest of the class will need something to do.

The Sister's said it perfectly on page 15 "it is about helping our students develop independent literacy habits, so that we are free to work with small groups or have individual conferences"

I think the Daily 5 is a good way to model indpendence and structure our blocks of time so we are able to work with those students who need it.

 Wow! That turned out a lot longer than I thought it would! Go check out We Read We Blog We Teach for more insights!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn