Daily 5

I am sure many of you have heard your child talking about "The Daily 5". The Daily 5 is a way of structuring the reading block so every student is independently engaged in meaningful literacy tasks. These research-based tasks are ones that will have the biggest effect on student reading and writing achievement, as well as help encourage children who love to read and write. Student receive explicit whole group instruction and then are given independent practice time to read and write independently while I provide focused, instruction to individuals and small groups of students.

Our classroom has a Literacy CAFE Menu posted that contains strategies good readers use when reading. In class, we compared our Literacy CAFE menu to a menu at a restaurant. We discussed how the food we order at a restaurant depends on the time of day, how hungry we are, and what we like to eat. This compares to our classroom CAFE menu because as readers we use the strategies we need at the time to help us successfully read and comprehend. CAFE is an acronym that stands for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding vocabulary. These become our goals and the strategies we use to be successful with our goals are posted below them. Each child has goals and strategies specific to his/her needs and therefore will get the direct instruction needed to move forward and become a successful reader.