Daily 5 signs

I made these signs for my classroom but thought I would upload them for anyone else that wants to use them. I also have CAFE strategy cards but I'm having trouble getting them to upload correctly into Google images. I'll post those as soon as I figure it out. Just click on the imagine and it will take you to the document.  Enjoy!

Cute and Organized!

Today I finished my Daily 5 book box display. I have always wanted to use book boxes but couldn't justify the expense of magazine file boxes. The cheapest I've seen them was $2.50 each. Times that by 26 kiddos and well, you get the idea. So you can imagine my excitement when I found these cuties in the Target dollar spot. Yay!! I picked up 30 of them and ran back to school eager to put them in their chosen spots. I decided to organize them all in a pattern because it's prettier that way and I love me a pretty display! BUT, you all know what happens as soon as the kiddos get a hold of them. They will be shoved back onto the shelf in any old order. To keep them in their place I labeled the shelf with an identical name tag that's on the book box. Now all the kiddos have to do is find their name and my pretty display will stay all year long!

Working With Words

The last component of Daily 5 that the kids learned was Working With Words. Each week the kids have 10 spelling words and 2 challenge words. These words are usually sight words and word family words that they need to know for both reading and writing. We use these words for our word work each week. The students choose from a list of several word activities that they can do to practice their words.

The list is growing but here are a few;

Stamps- The kids use letter stamps to print the words on paper.

White Boards- The kids use white boards to write the words. They can practice writing them over and over or they can use blue for consonants and red for vowels.

Rainbow Writing- The spelling words are written on paper in a variety of colors.

Magnetic Letters- The words are spelled on the easel whiteboard using magnetic letters.

Playdough- The letters for each word or rolled out and formed using playdough.

We also have letter beads, string words, and a scrambled egg word activity that we use. Word Work has quickly become a favorite Daily 5 component of many of the kids in the room!

Mystery Reader

Everyone loves a great mystery, especially second graders. Every Friday in our room we have a guest mystery reader. The mystery reader can be a mom, dad, granparent, aunt, uncle, or any other member of a student's family. Parents sign up to be mystery reader ahead of time and keep their date a secret from their students. Then on Friday, my kids wait with anticipation to see who is going to walk through the door during storytime. It is so much fun for the kids to see their family member walk in unexpectedly!

Our first Mystery Reader was Mr. Marquez. What a great job he did reading aloud the book "The Wolf who Cried Boy". Thank you Mr. Marquez!

Read to Someone

Partner reading can be a very useful reading tool if used the right way. I will admit that up to this year, I have always been a little hesitant to have kids partner read because 9 times out of 10, one partner is goofing off while the other is reading. Or, they both end up playing around.

Much like all of the other components of Daily 5, with proper training, partner reading can be fun and enjoyable.  The children are taught that there are several ways that they can read together. The first video that you will see shows a pair of children demonstrating "I Read, You Read". With this method, one child leads the reading while the second child echos. Then they both check for understanding (this particular pair forgot to check for understanding). This method is great for building fluency, especially if the lead student is a fluent reader.

The second video shows another method of paired reading called "2 different books". This strategy is great for kids on different levels because they each read from their own book. The first student reads a page of his/her book while the second listens and then checks for understanding. Then the second student reads from his/her book while the first listens and checks for understanding. The two girls in the second video illustrate this method perfectly!

Practice Makes Perfect!

Like anything worth learning and doing, it takes practice to get better. This is especially true with reading.

I can teach strategies, pull guided reading groups to reinforce and observe how children use these strategies, and meet with kids one-on-one to give them reading goals.

But, if kids don't spend a significant amount of time practicing on their own, it is quite difficult for them to make significant gains.

I have learned many things with experience. One important thing that I have learned is that you can't expect beginning of the year second graders to walk in on day one and read quietly for 20-30 minutes. They need time and direction on how to build their reading stamina.

We began Read to Self on the second day of school with a 3 minute block of time. We are now up to 15 minutes. We have discussed what behaviors are necessary to maximize our Read to Self time. The students came up with the following:

• Find a quiet place to read and stay there
• Read the whole time (no pretend reading)
• Don't talk or make noises that will distract others
• Get started quickly

As soon as I observe a behavior that goes against those listed above, I stop the children and bring them back to the meeting area. We then discuss what we need to do to fix the problem for the next time. This process can be slow and tedious, but the children learn that reading time is valuable and we must take it seriously. This video clip is a quick peek inside our Read to Self time. I love how engaged all of the kids are with their reading!

Believe it or not, it takes them only about 20 seconds to choose their own spot and begin. What amazing kiddos!

Serve it Up! What's On Today's Cafe Menu

This summer I spent an extensive amount of time researching best practices in reading instruction. I have always used a mix of whole class, small group and individual teaching approaches; however, I have struggled with how to mesh them all together. Another area of personal struggle for me keeping the rest of the kids working independently while I meet with groups and individual students. I have tried centers in the past, and I know many teachers who are able to use them successfully, but I am not one of them. I find centers to be a ton of work to set up and manage. So, I was very excited to find Daily 5 and CAFE.

You will be amazed with the focused reading instruction that your student will receive this year. If you would like to know more about it, I have attached a parent letter here

We began Daily 5 today with "Read to Self". The students worked on how to correctly read to themselves. We practiced for 3 minutes. Tomorrow we will increase our time, and in the next few weeks, work our way up to 20 minutes. By slowly increasing the amount of time the students are expected to work independently we are building reading stamina. I expect all of my students to eventually read for 20 minutes without getting up, talking, or "wasting time" and I know they will all accomplish this goal.

During CAFE today, the students learned two reading strategies that they should be able to tell you about, Check for Comprehension and Cross Checking. I will post about each of these important strategies in the next week or so. After we learned about each strategy, we placed them on the CAFE menu so that we can all access them on a daily basis. Tomorrow we will practice these and learn two more.

Please talk to your child about Daily 5 and CAFE. Ask them which reading strategies were "served" on today's menu! See you tomorrow!

The Cafe board. Where reading strategies are served daily.