Core Beliefs of the Daily 5- Book Study Chapter 9

As the Daily 5 book study wraps up, we’ll return to the core beliefs of the framework.  I love that this chapter acknowledges the realities of a classroom- the substitute teachers, the kids who are always pushing our limits, parent volunteers, and new students- and shares insight for how to handle these situations without letting them ruin the good parts of the Daily 5!

Again and again, the Sisters talk about the core beliefs:
community, accountability, trust, and respect.

And with most of our students, the steps outlined in setting up the Daily 5 allow these things to resonate and really take hold in our classrooms.

A lot of PD books would stop here, but the Sisters are teachers. They GET that what works for 95% of our students the first go-around isn’t necessarily something that works for every kid without some extra support.

They describe that last 5% of kids- the “challenging” kids- as the barometer kids. As they put it, these kids “dictate the weather in the classroom.”

Again, the Sisters’ response to a misbehaving child is not to assume they can do it and are being defiant, but to look at the why, and teach that child to succeed, adding support as needed.

We can’t assume our students know how to meet expectations without teaching them, and we can’t expect that every student can meet those expectations without extra support.

Here are the levels of support in the book:

1. Reflection

This is when we look at ourselves. Did we model? Did we engage the student when we should’ve let him or her be independent? Did we use positive voice and tone? Have we checked his or her book box for engaging, appropriate books, and helped the student choose new books if needed?

Essentially- this is when we look at ourselves. WE are on a behavior plan, and we even ask colleagues to see if they notice anything WE can improve.

2. Extra Support

If a student struggles, they need reteaching and practice. The Sisters suggest doing this during recess if needed to build accountability. By taking just 2-3 minutes and giving that child a specific goal to work on, it builds urgency- and being one-on-one with the teacher definitely puts the goal at the forefront of their minds.

In the classroom, I would likely try this during the reading block when possible. I think staying in from recess feels too much like a punishment, and I don’t want that associated with our reading time at all. Instead, I can quietly confer with the student about a goal at the start of a reading round and then give them a few minutes of specific practice within the context of reading time. Of course, using a couple of minutes of recess could be an option if the student is just not taking it seriously, but I don’t think we should try it first.

3. In-Class Modifications

Just like with any instructional needs our students have, the next step after reteaching is to provide some modifications in class to help our barometer students be more successful.

For this, consider how your student struggles. Having a hard time sitting in one spot? Give them a defined space or “office” to sit on. Having a hard time sitting still for so long? Add small brain breaks with kinesthetic tools in between reading. Essentially, look at what your student needs- and try to offer scaffolding towards that goal.

For my barometer student, L, a couple of years ago, he struggled a lot with staying in one spot and focusing. I let him choose what he felt like he needed to work on the most, and he chose focusing on his book. I asked him what might help, and he asked if he could sit by a responsible student who could give him a silent reminder if he was off-task. She was very patient, and he wanted to do well- so it worked for him! I also contacted his parents to let them know we were working on stamina, and suggested they spend a little time building reading stamina and even stamina to sit still during other activities at home. He began to see success, and as his confidence grew, I saw his independence grow, too!

4. Gradual Release of In-Class Modifications

At a professional development session I attended last week, I heard a sentence I just loved: “Scaffolding is meant to come down.” If we continue to provide the same supports that a student initially needs without ever reconsidering their needs, that student may come to depend on the supports forever. If our goal is truly to build independence, we need to slowly remove the modifications that helped our student succeed.

The Sisters suggest sandwiching quick check-ins within a round. I found that sometimes, this gradual release happened naturally- and all I had to do was check in with students. With my student L, his friend stopped needing to give him so many reminders, and one day he asked me if he could go sit by someone else. I turned it back to him and asked what he thought. He was pretty sure he could do it- and so I encouraged him to go for it and told him we’d check in again at the end of the round. Guess what? He rocked  it. I really think that giving him ownership over the modifications was a big part in his success.

At the end of the year, his mom asked me for a conference. The year prior, he had been a “behavior problem.” This year, though, L loved school- and even though he still struggled to focus at times, his behavior had improved immensely. At our conference, his mom wanted to know what had helped, and what she could do to continue his success- and I begged her to please keep him reading for a round or two every day of the summer. For him, learning to be independent went beyond just reading independently- building stamina and taking responsibility for his choices and success were paramount in his improvement.

Ultimately, I think a lot of why he had been in so much trouble the year before was that his teacher didn’t think he could do it- but the Daily 5’s core beliefs made a difference.

“Trusting children is the underpinning of what makes the Daily 5 work.”
                                                                     - The 2 Sisters

And for this eager-to-please boy, knowing that I trusted he COULD do it and WOULD do it (even if he needed a little help at first) made all  the difference.

The Sisters know that moving to this framework isn’t easy.

They describe the initial discomfort to not having papers that prove your children’s learning (although my students’ reading notebooks helped with this for me). They understand the impatience you’ll feel when it takes days to launch and build stamina. They get that it’s hard for us to try something new and not feel like it’s running perfectly right at the start.

But they remind us of this:
Trust our students and our teaching, and read research to allow the experts in our field to give us courage.

They also provide tips in this last chapter for working with parents (who may be skeptical of something so different), introducing the system to new students, and how to make sure everything runs smoothly even with a guest teacher. The appendices provided have everything you need to know to start the Daily 5- lesson plans to launch it, a stamina chart, the 10 Steps to Independence for each task, sample substitute plans, and even a sample parent letter. If you don’t have the book (or if you only had the first edition), it’s worth it.

 

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Ultimately, the Daily 5 in my classroom was a resounding success. Less busywork for me, less busywork for the students, and kids who went from hating reading to loving it.

I can recall L finally making it to 20 minutes of stamina, and the look of pride on his face. I remember two of my students finding a contradiction about Abraham Lincoln’s life in two different texts, and hunkering down to do research for days to find the answer. I think back to the conversations I had with my students in their journals, and especially a  girl who wrote to me about how she hates books where kids have a perfect life, because she doesn’t- and being able to recommend the perfect book to make her feel less alone.

Reading is powerful- and the Daily 5 will get your kids really reading.
And is there really anything more important than that?

In case you’ve missed any of my previous posts about the Daily 5, you can read them here:

Chapter 1– What is the Daily 5, and How is the 2nd Edition Different?
Chapter 2 – Core Beliefs of Daily 5
Chapter 3 – The Ten Steps to Independence
Chapter 5 – Launching Read to Self in the Daily 5
Chapter 6 – Daily 5 Foundation Lessons
Chapter 7 – When to Launch the Next Daily 5 Task & Introduce Choice
Chapter 8 – The Math Daily 3

Organizing My 90 Minute Reading Block with Daily 5
How I Manage Small Group Materials
Keeping Students Accountable in Daily 5- Without Taking Away Choice

You can also read more about chapter 9 from Primary Inspired (the wonderful host of our book study!) and the other Daily 5 bloggers in the links below. Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

How to Do Daily 3 Math – Daily 5 Book Study Chapter 8

The Daily 5 offers valuable independent activities to build my students’ literacy skills, so it’s natural that I wanted to extend the same kind of framework to math. After all, a format that strengthens foundational skills while I can reteach or run small groups should really be the goal across every subject!

The Math Daily 3 is the Sisters’ solution to this. The set-up is even simpler than the Daily 5, with three tasks for students to do independently. Here are my notes for this section:

As you can see, the three main tasks (Math By Myself, Math Writing, and Math with Someone) have mini-lessons in between. This is new to the Daily 5 second edition, so I haven’t taught with this system yet- but I’m already brainstorming how I would!

Where Math Daily 3 varies from Daily 5 is that the activities do not necessarily stay the same all year. Ideally, some of the activities students are doing are directly tied to the previous unit (especially as you start a new unit) or the current one (as you’ve taught some lessons that students should be ready to review).

Because math activities may require hands-on materials or games, it’s best to introduce these activities one at a time and truly teach each one.

Games and hands-on materials can very, very easily become playtime- so make sure you give students very clear expectations, and have ways to keep materials organized.

I like to store “game sets” in easy-to-grab cups- just a couple of dice and counters- and my number tiles were stored the same way. (I have the kids count the tiles as they put them back to make sure each one always has a complete set!)

 

As more choices for Math by Myself, Math with Someone, and Math Writing are introduced, you’ll want a way for students to easily see their choices. You can add to this choice board as you’ve introduced more activities.

The key with Math Daily 3 is remembering to use the 10 Steps to Independence to really train your students in the expectations so that you are able to be differentiating instruction during this time.

Here’s what that choice board might look like during a subtraction unit (using some borders I love from Creative Teaching Press!)

I think the key will be sitting down before each unit and brainstorming a few activities your kids can do to review the last unit and to practice skills for this unit, too. If this were my classroom, I’d probably use some routines (such as task cards and a math journal) that would be easy to swap out for each unit without having to teach new expectations.

Feel free to click on the image above if you think this Daily 3 Math Planning Sheet is something you could use!

As much work as it may seem to get set up with Daily 3, I think the value of small group instruction is WORTH it! And I think with routines and a few basic, adaptable activities, your students can be so independent while you work with a few.

You can read more about this chapter at these blogs:

An InLinkz Link-up

Daily 5- When to Launch The Next Task (Chapter 7 Book Study)

Welcome back to our Daily 5 book study!

In case you’re new to the Daily 5, there are 5 main tasks that students perform during the Daily 5 “rounds”:

• Read to Self
• Read to Someone
• Listen to Reading
• Word Work
• Work on Writing

A big piece of the Daily 5 is to introduce the system slowly, and it starts with introducing Read to Self. After that, though, teachers need to know when to launch the next task, and that’s what chapter 7 is all about!

The biggest question to ask: How do you know when they’re ready? The Sisters say, again:

One year, you may move on to the 2nd Daily 5 task in 3 or 4 days. With another class, it might be two weeks. What matters is not the specific timeline, but that you treat this like any other skillset to be learned.

“Every class is different.”

When YOUR class can demonstrate independence and stamina, they’re ready to move on- but the Sisters suggest different limits for different groups of kids.

When I taught with the Daily 5, I waited to move on until my 3rd graders had about 15 minutes of stamina- but we continued to practice it until our graph reached 20 minutes. (We just alternated practicing Read to Self and Read to Someone.) Now, though, the Sisters suggest moving on to Work on Writing next.

(Yes, if you read the first edition, this is a change!)

Basically, they say that writing is too important to wait any longer- and it’s also something that most students should have a little stamina in. 

This summer I’ve been sharing some of my notes on Instagram, and people seem to like them… so I thought I’d share my notes from this section of the chapter:

Just like with Read to Self, we instill a sense of urgency and purpose in our students by telling them that Work on Writing is “the best way to become a better writer.”

Keep in mind, though, that Work on Writing is not replacing your writer’s workshop time!

In my classroom, I wanted my 3rd graders to be responding to text, so we switched “Work on Writing” to “Writing About Reading.” I had to add in a few extra foundation lessons and modeled journal entries to teach my students what this looked like- but then I gave them pretty free reign to write about their thinking as they read, because I didn’t want them to be worried about a formula. (You can read more about our reading notebooks here.)

For those students who weren’t ready yet, I conferred, led small groups, or wrote responses back in their notebook to help guide them in the right direction. It just meant they needed more teaching- not that they couldn’t handle it!

This chapter walks you through the 10 Steps to Independence for this specific task, including giving your students choice. Yes, it’s hard to give up choice- but it’s important. Why? Here’s another excerpt from my notes:

Once you start letting students choose which task they do, you need to give them a little accountability. The Sisters use check-ins for this. And while I can see the benefit of keeping an eye on where your kids are spending their time… I felt like I could usually keep an eye on this by watching my kids’ reading notebooks and glancing around the room. While they use check-ins to make sure an even number of kids go to Read to Someone, or to dismiss in smaller groups, I focused more on teaching my kids strategies for problem solving in those inevitable situations.

I do like the idea of having students set a goal and a strategy they will use to reach their goal- something about voicing a goal helps you make it there!- but taking even a couple of minutes out of each round seemed too much. With older kids, I think setting the goal could be done at the beginning of the week in their notebooks.

As the rest of this chapter focuses on launching the other tasks, the foundation lessons focus on identifying potential pitfalls and setting the expectations before you even get started. Here’s another glimpse at my notes…

If you feel like the Daily 5 takes too much time to get going, keep in mind that you are teaching each one of these things now, so that you won’t have to stop learning much later. I did have occasional times where we reviewed expectations, but it was so much less than in previous years- because we did it right the first time. This is really a case where slow and steady wins the race (and makes the teacher less crazy later!)

And please- if the idea of giving your kids choice is terrifying, read this post from a couple of years ago…  it can work with accountability- and work SO well!

I have so enjoyed revisiting the Daily 5 during this book study. I hope you are loving it as much as I am! You can see everyone linked up to this chapter at our host - Mrs. Price’s Kindergators- or check out the linky below!

An InLinkz Link-up

10 Steps to Teaching and Learning Independence- Daily 5 Book Study

When I first heard about the Daily 5, I have to admit I scoffed a little. Oh? Your kids just read for 20 minutes? Yeah, okay, but I know I’d have kids who wouldn’t be able to do that.

Then I kept hearing the word stamina. Over and over again.

And I realized, when I read the book, that the Sisters don’t expect kids to just be able to do it automatically. Instead, they teach it- just like we teach other skills and procedures- and then help the kids gradually build their stamina, from a couple of minutes up to many.

They describe a Daily 5 time in the classroom in this way:
”Reading is so important, they can’t and won’t let anything get in the way.”

And this is how I feel about that:

To get there, the Sisters line up 10 steps, which I tried to break down a little. (I highly encourage you to get the book and read about them in detail!)

1. Identify what is to be taught.
We do I Can statements in my school for this same reason.

2. Set a purpose and create a sense of urgency.
If kids don’t see the point, they won’t be invested… just like us.

3. Record desired behaviors on an I-chart.
We’ve all made charts with our kids, but the I-chart is especially powerful because kids see what the teacher will be doing, too.

4. Model most-desirable behaviors.
When the kids go from listening and looking at a chart to actually seeing them, and actually doing them, is powerful.

5. Model least-desirable behaviors, then most-desirable behaviors again.
Let your class clown be a class clown, and make the others laugh- and then praise them for doing such a wonderful job of doing it right. It’s also a great way to avoid the “But I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to ___…”

6. Place students around the room.
”Is this a place where I and others can be successful?” is something that is so helpful not just in Daily 5, but all day. We have to teach our students to take responsibility for their choices and reflect on them.

7. Practice and build stamina.
How do you get better at anything? You practice. And you give it time.

8. Stay out of the way.
This is so hard. The hardest part of the Daily 5, I think. You have to let the kids practice without stepping in. You can’t circulate, you can’t give reminders, because you’re letting them learn to depend on you. Instead, we have to teach them to reflect and self-manage. And isn’t that what we all want?

9. Use a quiet signal to bring students back to the gathering place.
Give them the chance to get up, move, and stretch a little- but don’t jar them out of their reading worlds. I secretly love seeing a kid trying to finish that one sentence or that one page before putting away their book box- because it’s a sign that they are into their book. Quietly, gently transitioning keeps the mood just right for focusing on a mini-lesson!

10. Conduct a group check-in.
Again, we can’t always be the one telling the students whether they did well or poorly. We have to teach them to make that call for themselves and internalize their own power.

That’s really what these steps to independence are- they’re training kids to believe their own power, and to build a growth mindset.

Kids can grow in any way they want if they believe it and work for it- and the Daily 5 helps them see that opportunity for growth in themselves.

I wrote in our chapter two post about how the steps to independence really made a difference for one of my impulsive, unusually active students.

In chapter 3, they gave us a word for those kids- “barometer kids”- the ones who run out of stamina first and give you an idea of when the rest of the class will struggle.

I am a firm believer that these steps to independence will make the difference for your kids- especially your barometer kids- for any behavior you want to teach.

They really are the reason the Daily 5 works:

“[In] the Daily 5, we let the students who are present in front of us guide our teaching, based on their experience, stamina, needs, and behaviors.”

Amen, Sisters. Amen.

This chapter’s book study is being hosted by my good friend Whitney at The CraZy Schoolteacher- pop on over to see others’ takeaways!

Thanks for reading! I am LOVING this book study with Primary Inspired!

Daily 5 Book Study- Chapter 1

My first year in my own classroom, I spent so much time looking for free center activities and then printing, laminating, and cutting.

In the first chapter of the Daily 5 book, the “two sisters” talk about all the “things” done during literacy time. They say,

“We had spent the majority of our time preparing for
and reviewing the children’s busywork.”

And, um… guilty.

When I read the Daily 5 book for the first time, I remember feeling a little underwhelmed because it was all so simple. It’s just a framework- a way to set up your literacy block- and it involves so many less reading “things,” and so much more actual READING.

(Did I also mention that this means you don’t have to spend every waking moment cutting out laminated centers?)

I picked up a copy of the 2nd edition of Daily 5 to join in a book study with Brenda from Primary Inspired and some of my friends. We’d love to have you join us, even if you’ve read the first edition of the book!

The second edition of the book goes into so much more detail about each individual lesson you teach to set up your students for success, and it talks about how to do a similar framework in math. The back of the book has about 30 pages of helpful templates and lesson plans, too!

Compared to the first edition, this one gives you a little less of the “why,”
and a little more of the “how.”

The first chapter does delve into background of the Daily 5, though… and I love the way the authors, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, use research to justify so much of what they do!

Probably my favorite thing about Daily 5 and the two sisters is that it is FLEXIBLE. I’ve never been one to read someone else’s theory and copy it exactly in my classroom- because every class is different, and every teacher is different… and because these two authors are actual teachers, they get that.

“The Daily 5 is not a prescriptive program to be followed blindly, the same way each day, month, and year. Instead, we as educators need to respond and react to the diverse needs of our own students.”

Wait—is that ACTUAL RESPECT FOR EDUCATORS AS PROFESSIONALS? Is that TRUSTING us to make decisions that benefit our kids? Awwww yeah!

As I read the Daily 5 this time, I’m sort of looking at it through a different lens. I’m not a self-contained teacher anymore, and I primarily teach science now.

We do teach a reading RTI block, though! This year, my group was around 20-25 students, so I’m hoping that next year I can use an adaptation of Daily 5 to give my kids a lot of reading time and small group instruction… so this whole flexible, go-with-your-kids’-needs philosophy is perfect!

If you’ve never used the Daily 5 framework before, it’s made up of two main parts:

• Mini-Lessons
  • less than 10 minutes (based on brain research)
  • based on strategies from CAFÉ (the 2 Sisters’ companion book)
• “Rounds”
  • teacher meets with small groups or confers with individuals
  • students choose between five options:
    • Read to Self
    • Read to Someone
    • Listen to Reading
    • Word Work
    • Work on Writing

In my classroom, it worked so well- because my kids were engaged in real, meaningful reading tasks… and probably most importantly, they were systematically taught how to do these tasks independently.

And because they were independently engaged in activities they chose, my kids didn’t interrupt my reading groups or conferences.

The first time my principal observed during Daily 5, she was blown away. She said she kept trying to find kids off-task… and couldn’t.

That’s the power in the Daily 5. It’s huge. And best of all, it’s flexible to you, your students, and the things your admins require of you (usually!).

We are so excited to read this book together and share our thoughts! If you’d like to get a copy of the book, you can get one here.  {affiliate link}

We would love to hear your comments and questions along the way! You can also go to Primary Inspired to read more about chapter one from the other teachers in the book study.

Do you use the Daily 5 in your classroom? If you do, what do YOU love about it?  :  )