The Daily 5 Book Study

Let’s get ready for The Daily 5 Book Study. Do you have your book? {If not click, or here to get it asap!} Do you have the desire to make changes to make your classroom’s literacy to make your students responsible for their learning? Do you want to teach your students to read not monitor behaviors? Do you want procedures and routines in place to make your students better learners and better readers??

Don’t Do This

The county I am blessed to work in started talking about using this system for guided reading about 3 years ago. They gave us the Original Daily 5 book as well as the CAFE book. The school system loved how independent the students were who used this structure. They loved the results of the students who used this structure.

I stupidly read the CAFE book first and was LOST. {Don’t do that… read this one first.} I kept thinking: MY KIDS CAN’T DO THAT! {Note: This is usually what I say when I don’t want to TRY to do something. It is the easiest excuse to pull out and resort to.}

The Daily 5 Book Study

Then, I read the Daily 5 book. Everything made sense. I wanted the type of classroom I was reading about in the book. When you know better, you do better. I owed it to my students to allow them to be better. I owed them a chance to try TRY the Daily 5. Why not try this? What is the worst thing that could happen?

So I Tried It

In March of 2012, I changed my 4 reading groups into Daily 5 stations. Since my students were already trained and reading, it was very easy to build stamina and get rocking and rolling. When I decided to let go and give up the control I felt comfortable with and started trying AMAZING things happened.

I fell in LOVE with The Daily 5 that instant that I SAW the classroom I read about. Guys… I was working too hard for my little loves and they needed to step up and do the work INSTEAD of me. The next school year I started teaching the structure on the 3rd day of school.

I saw the big picture from the previous year and knew where I wanted them to be at the end of this year. We worked on building our stamina to read to ourselves. But with my kindergarteners, I taught using 4 small groups UNTIL we taught each element of the Daily 5. By October, we were ready to change from small groups into a free choice board for our Daily 5 stations.

Two full school years later, I love The Daily 5 more so than day one. I also love the independence of my students using this structure. It makes them responsible for their learning!!!

How The Daily 5 Evolved

There have been some changes to The Daily 5 from their first book. I add this because some people wondered if they needed the newest book. Here are the changes I have noticed thus far:

1. The sisters encourage you to do all 5 areas in a week, not a day.
2. Read to Self is still taught first, but Work on Writing is now taught second and the other areas are taught based on your students’ needs.
3. The 10 Steps to Independence {NEW}
4. The introduction to the Math Daily 3 {NEW}

Things That Got Me Thinking

When referring to work given to students during the reading time before The Daily 5, “But did those things just keep our kids busy, or were our kids engaged in literacy tasks that will make a difference in their literacy lives?” {p 4-5}

After using The Daily 5, would you like this to be said about your classroom; “Looking around the room, you may have to hunt a bit to find us. When you do, you will discover us deeply engaged with a small group of two or three students as we practice comprehension strategies together.” {p. 5}

This is EXACTLY how my class looks during our Daily 5 time… even in Kindergarten. “Instead of trying to “manage’ students, rushing around the room and putting out fires, we wanted to create routines and procedures that fostered independent literacy behaviors.” {p.7-8}

I love the way they help you to start the year off with procedures and routines. Do you choose where your students will go or is it an independent choice? I also want to add that the framework for The Daily 5 is PERFECT for schedules that are not perfect. Meaning, if you don’t have a huge block of time to devote to literacy instruction, this model is ideal for you and your students.

The Core Beliefs of The Daily 5

The Core Beliefs this chapter focuses on are the foundation of The Daily 5, and a lot of this chapter was new!

Trust and Respect

1. Takes time
2. Each child is worthy of our trust and respect
3. We have to have trust in our students’ abilities to do activities for a set amount of time
4. We teach students to use stamina instead of giving them busy work
5. Sometimes trust is hard for us as teachers, but it is needed for our students
6. “Trust is believing the best in others, even when actions or behaviors seem incongruent.” {p.23a}

Community

1. “The environment of the community becomes intricate with each shared activity and lesson.” {p. 23}
2. “A sense of community empowers students to hold others accountable for behavior, learning, respect, and kindness.” {p. 24}
3. This also pertains to the development of students. We need students to accept that different students can be on different reading levels and read different books.

Choice

1. I have found that the idea of giving students a choice of where to go is hard for teachers.
2. When I made the choice to let my students choose where they go, everything changed in my classroom. It was AMAZING the difference in my students. They LOVED it. This is one way they KNEW I respected them.
3. Highly motivating
4. “Allows students to take ownership.” {p.25}
5. Opportunity for choice can be earned. This is big for me. If you can’t make a good choice, I will help you and support you in this area until I feel you can. I support those who need it and I take away that support as needed too.

 Accountability

1. This can be as simple as choosing a spot to work in, noise levels, etc.
2. No day is perfect.
3. If you to step back and go over the rules again for a particular problem, please do it.

 Brain Research

1. “After ten minutes of direct instruction, the brain must shift in order to refocus.”{p.29}
2. We need our instruction to become 20/80. 20% of our instruction is spent teaching students, while 80% is spent practicing skills and concepts.
3. “Extended amounts of time for student practice is the key.’ {p. 30}
4. Students can tell when their brains need a break. they get up to get water or go to the bathroom, or even choose to bother others.
5. The breaks can be a physical break from work, a movement activity to help their brains continue to work, a brain break to help students refocus, or a shorter lesson.
6. Learning how to take a brain break is also something that is taught!

What Do I Think?

So, what do you think of the first two chapters? I am personally loving the changes I am reading about because those are the changes I have already made to The Daily 5 in my classroom! I have an idea for a freebie for the next chapters. Chapters 3-4 are NEXT Friday, June 13!

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