The Sisters have identified 10 steps to teaching and learning independence.Click here to see their steps! They use these steps to teach each of their Daily 5 independent learning times.
Below is a sample of an I-Chart that I found on Pintrest.
Click here to find a Read To Self launching chart from "The Sisters" website. This is similar to the chart of page 58 of the Daily 5 book, but it is in a manner that you could print off and keep with you at your easel when teaching.
On day 4 you begin to introduce how to choose good-fit books. This summer, I am also reading another book called The Book Whisperer. This is a great book for intermediate teachers to work on choosing good-fit books for our 4th and 5th grade students based on their interests. The book is written by a 6th grade lanugage arts teacher who believes that students learn best through their good-fit book choices instead of teacher selected literature book clubs. She uses individual conferencing to help students continue to improve their reading instruction (which sounds similar to the Cafe strategies that we are going to read next).
I have bought a subscription to "The Sisters" website so that when we meet in late July (Scott and I are still working on a date and time) we can watch a couple of videos of primary and intermediate teachers starting the Daily 5 in their classrooms.
I hope that you are enjoying this read so far, please write below any questions or items that you have found online that would help all of us who are learning!
I believe Read to Self is at the heart any solid reading block, so I find it quite appropriate that the Sisters would kick-off their Daily Five routines with Read to Self. The ultimate goal is for all students to become independent readers and thinkers. Setting kids up early to be successful independent readers is critical. If we do not teach children how to Read to Self successfully in the early primary years, bad habits will, undoubtedly, solidify into areas of weakness as students enter a more difficult text and are expected to read for longer periods of time.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the Sisters describe a very primary approach to Read to Self, intermediate students could benefit from practice and check-in several times before releasing them to self-read. Maybe instead of the students reading for three minutes, intermediate students would begin Read to Self at 6-8 minutes. Once my reading block was in full swing, I expected my third and fourth graders to read for 30 or more minutes daily.
Jenny has posted a link to the Daily Café website that will lead you to the 10 Steps to Teaching Independence. According to the Sisters, step 8, stay out of the way, is one of the most important steps to helping students build stamina. It is suggested, when practicing Read to Self, or any other Daily Five routine, the teacher not interfere. This means no correcting or praising the children during the practice sessions. The idea behind this is that the students will learn how to be independent without your help. In other words, they will not rely on you to get them back on task or to reinforce their good behavior.
Another Daily Five tip (which I think is genius) is this; as students are practicing Read to Self surreptitiously wait and watch for the "barometer child", the first child to break stamina, which is the cue that it is time to regroup and teach the last two steps of The 10 Steps of Independence. The reason behind this is to allow this student to only practice good behaviors. If we allow them to wiggle around and be off task, these behaviors will become bad habits. This link gives a list of ways to support your “barometer child”….. OK, let’s be honest, “barometer CHILDREN.” http://www.thedailycafe.com/Barometer_child_steps_2008_4[1].pdf