Why Do I “Daily 5”

Why Do I Daily 5?

There are so many good ways,

 if not great ways,

to teach reading skills to little ones.

When I was fresh out of college,

I had no clue how to actually teach little ones to read.

My first year in K was an eye opener.

Ideally, we want to teach our students a love of reading and a passion to read independently.

But how do we do it?

How do we {teachers} get little ones to LOVE reading independently with passion?

Guys, I tried lots of ways,

strategies,

structures,

and systems.

Most of them worked. My kids learned to read.

Some of them drove me crazy or them crazy.

Many of them went too slow or too fast…

just not the right pace to the unknown world of kinders.

  and worked towards independence.

A few years ago my county told all their elementary level teachers

 about The Daily 5 structure and asked us to jump on board.

This was the direction we were going in as a group and it was best for the students if we all bought in.

Was I hesitant? Yes.

Was I doubtful about some areas? Yes.

Did I want it to work? I wasn’t sure.

Remember, I really want to teach my students a love of reading

and a passion to read independently.

I actually started The Daily 5 structure in March of a school year.

{No, you do not have to start at the beginning of the year.

It is never too late to try something.}

And I am so glad I did!

 It was easy to start this structure deep into the school year.

And doing so gave me the confidence and the background to know I could

start the school year off using this structure at the start of the school year.

I now LOVE this structure for so many reasons.

special needs, high, medium, low, and even gifted.

AND it allows me to be ME and teach my class.

Here is a freebie sign I made using the 10 Step of Independence.

{Click here to grab this freebie.}

One of the first things I teach my kinders is to READ to themselves.

There is nothing like choosing a book, opening that book, and reading it.

As an adult {and a mommy of 2} the joy is still there! This means I had to create a student friendly, book rich classroom library.
Why? Because my students were going to be reading a lot.
And they were going to be self selecting their own books.
They needed to be independent in their classroom library.

{You can find my Library Book Labels here.}My classroom library gets a better and better each school year.
We wear out great books often too.
It is a happy/sad feeling.
I am so happy that amazing book was used by so many students.
But I am sad it is no longer usable.

I get most of my books from Scholastic and Amazon.

And my kinders can find the joy as well.

Free Bookmarks

I made these free bookmarks to help my little ones remember HOW to read to themselves.

 I love this bookmark because it shows the visual of how to read to themselves

along with the rules for read to self.

{No they can’t read the rules yet,

but they memorize the order.

And you are teaching them reading skills daily

so it won’t be long until they can and will read the rules.}

The bookmarks are double sided so ONE side show Read to Self,

while the other side shows Read to Someone.

We use our bookmarks inside our books.

As we read our books, we mark our places in our books.

This is ideal since when we start reading to ourselves, we usually only make it a few minutes.
We have to build up our stamina.

Your little ones won’t always finish a book.

We usually come back together to talk about our time at read to self,
discuss a reading strategy, or to wiggle it out.
Then we go BACK to read to self.

And our book is waiting for us…

And when we are ready to read to someone else,

our bookmarks can be used for that too!

 Here is a close up of the bookmarks.

 You can give each of your students their own bookmark,
or you can have a bookmark in each book.
There really isn’t a wrong way to use them. My biggest fear was giving my students OPEN choice for their time.
Yes… you read that correctly.

I give my students FREE CHOICE for their entire time at Daily 5.
They have their stops to go to and their time limit.
And I give them a choice board like this one.

Here are my color coded choice board pieces.

 

Strategy Cards

These reading strategy cards are ideal for non readers.
They have picture cues to encourage independence.

I teach reading strategies whole group.
But I feel most of my students need additional small group reteaching or practice using their skills.
I also use small group instruction as a chance to push students on when they are ready for more advanced reading strategies.

So we do a whole group reading lesson with these reading strategies,
then I use them again in small groups.

I also use these cards right in front of my students as they read.

And I read with them and watch them read to see how that strategy is going for them.

{Here is a link to all my reading strategy cards.}

And if you are interested in learning more from teachers who use The Daily 5 structure,
please check out a Book Study on this topic by clicking here.