The Daily Five and Reader's Workshop

Reader's Workshop has been talked about a lot as a preferred instructional strategy.  It is an improvement over basal teaching because it includes mini lessons on reading strategies, independent reading time, shared reading time, and time for word study.  This format provides for more differentiation for individual student needs and for increased time for students to actually read.  To see videos of Reader's Workshop in action click on this site,
Readers Workshop.
Reader's Workshop in Action

More Reader's Workshop

The Daily Five is similar to Reader's Workshop, but differs in several important ways.  The Sisters describe The Daily Five as a "student-driven management structure designed to fully engage  students in reading and writing."  What more could we want!  :)  Following is the Sisters' list of what distinguishes The Daily Five:

1. It teaches independence.*
2. Manages the entire literacy block.
3. Allows for 3-5 focus lessons.
4. Provides students with substantial time to read and write.*
5. Allows for the integration of reading and writing.
6. Incorporates a variety of clearly defined instructional routines that accelerate learning.
7. Builds stamina for longer periods of reading and writing.*
8. Culminates in highly engaged learners.
9. Teaches students to understand and monitor their literacy goals.

* My personal favorites!

If you haven't tried The Daily Five yet, give it a whirl or go visit a classroom where one of your colleagues is using it.  Our students love it.

Related articles

• Shared Readings & A Twin-Text Unit of Study (laneymcalpine.wordpress.com)
• Reading and Responding: Holding Writing Workshops (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)

Let's Talk about the Daily Five

Cover of The Daily Five

Our teachers in kindergarten through sixth grade are teaching students to read using the instructional model - Guided Reading. This just means that students are grouped according to their instructional reading levels and given reading material that matches that level.


A critical piece of the successful implementation of Guided Reading is keeping students who are not in your small group engaged in meaningful work that moves your curriculum along.  Our teachers discovered the book, The Daily Five: Fostering Literacy Independence in Elementary Grades by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser ("the sisters").  This book has helped many of our teachers develop a plan that ensures that they are helping to create readers and writers and not just keeping students busy.

The sentence on page 7 of the book says it all - "...the way teachers structure the learning environment and the way students spend their time influences the level of reading proficiency the students have attained at the end of the academic year."  The Daily Five are: 1) Read to Yourself;  2) Read to Someone;  3) Work on Writing; 
4) Listen to Reading;  and 5) Spelling or Word Work.

Take time to visit the Sisters' site - http://www.the2sisters.com/the_daily_5.html.

It's Been a Long Winter!

Image by daveynin via Flickr

It is officially Spring, but April snow was flying this afternoon in Butler County, PA.  (That's a picture of Slippery Rock Creek...a beautiful spot.)  This winter will just not let go of us!  It has been a long time since my last post.  There was "weather duty" and then the work to balance the budget.  Despite it all, I am seeing a light at the end of this tunnel and anxious to have more time to think about teaching and learning. 

I like the P-M- I Chart on page 124 of Summarization in Any Subject.  It seems like a quick and easy way to get a reaction from students to their reading.  What are the Pluses, Minuses, and something Interesting about what you read?  Getting students to get from the details to the big picture is a way to help students to retain the important ideas.  The teacher can start with a statement for students to react to...or you can be more open-ended and see what students find as the pluses or minuses in the text (or lesson) and what they found to be interesting.  You could also use this before the reading assignment as an advance organizer.

Related articles

• What Is the Reciprocal Teaching Strategy? (brighthub.com)