During the 2008-2009 school year, I began using The Sisters’ (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) process of teaching balanced literacy to my fourth grade students: Daily Five Reading and Literacy CAFE. Periodically I will post information, videos, or examples of how I am implementing this balanced literacy structure.

One the keys to success with Daily Five is helping students learn, understand, and practice the Daily Five procedures and routines quickly and efficiently. In my classroom I spend a lot of time having my students model the behavior I wanted. We also created together large anchor charts in the classroom that were posted on the classroom wall. Another way I had my students reinforce their knowledge of the Daily Five procedures and expectations was by having them make small, foldable books for homework.

Whenever we create an anchor chart in our classroom (For example, I PICK Good Fit Books), students  write and illustrate a small book using this new information.

I like these books because they open the door for kids to creatively demonstrate and share their learning in meaningful ways. I will often add these books to our class library or we will give them to another class as a “learning gift”.  For example, when my students created mini-books of our Read to Self behavior expectations, we shared these with a primary classroom at our school. My students’ books gave these other students another avenue to think about their own behavior expectations.  On top of that, my student authors are doing authentic work creating products for an audience outside my classroom!

Use this video to learn how to make a small foldable book. It is also a great idea to just let your students watch this video and learn how to make the foldable book that way too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Want to Know More?

Interested in learning more about The Daily Five Reading or the The Literacy CAFE? A good place to get more information about this wonderful balanced literacy structure is to visit The Daily Cafe or The Sisters’ website. Watch for more posts about Daily Five Reading and CAFE Literacy right here at BlueSofaMedia.com.

Read more posts related to The Daily Five here on BlueSofaMedia.com

Check out additional reviews and notes on The Daily Five on Amazon.com

Read more posts related to Cafe Literacy here on BlueSofaMedia.com

Check out additional reviews and notes on CAFE Literacy on Amazon.com

During the 2008-2009 school year, I began using The Sisters’ (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) process of teaching balanced literacy to my fourth grade students: Daily Five Reading and Literacy CAFE. Periodically I will post information, videos, or examples of how I am implementing this balanced literacy structure.

Books for Reluctant and Struggling Readers

When I attended the Choice Literacy Conference in Portland, Oregon a few years back, I was fortunate enough to go to a workshop by Franki Sibberson. At the time, I was teaching fourth grade and desperately needed more books for my reluctant and struggling readers.

One of the most helpful resources I took away from this workshop was a list of books that were engaging books for reluctant and struggling readers. After the workshop I immediately purchased the books and in made them a part of my classroom library. This list of books was a life-saver!

Benefits

There are three benefits that stand out about these particular books:

First, these books are so entertaining and clever that any student (or adult) will enjoy them. In fact, sometimes I often found these books in the book boxes of my really strong readers too. There is no stigma attached to these books and you can easily use them in your reading and writing mini-lessons.

Second, the books listed below are all part of a series with multiple books. If a struggling or reluctant reader enjoys one of these books, there are several more in the series that they will want to read too!

Third, most of these books not only come in audio form (CD or through Audible.com) but are affordable enough for a classrom library. I was able to purchase and have donated a few of the audio versions of these books and they became a well-used part of Listen to Reading.

Book List for Reluctant and Struggling Readers

I purchased all of the books listed above and as many of the books in each series as possible. I also noticed that our school library began stocking many of these books too. With these books available in in our class and the school media center, my reluctant and struggling readers definitely had an easier time finding books to read.

Want to Know More?

Interested in learning more about The Daily Five Reading or the The Literacy CAFE? A good place to get more information about this wonderful balanced literacy structure is to visit The Daily Cafe or The Sisters’ website. Watch for more posts about Daily Five Reading and CAFE Literacy right here at BlueSofaMedia.com.

Do you have a book series to add to this list?
Leave your suggestions in the comments below!

During the 2008-2009 school year, I began using The Sisters’ (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) process of teaching balanced literacy to my fourth grade students: Daily Five Reading and Literacy CAFE. Periodically I will post information, videos, or examples of how I am implementing this balanced literacy structure.

Word Work

One of the five components of The Daily Five is Word Work. Word Work is a time when students focus on spelling and vocabulary development, often using visual and kinesthetic methods. One of the activities students can do that is both visual and kinesthetic is Salt Dough Spelling.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I created this video to help my student learn how to correctly use Salt Dough when working on their spelling at school and at home.

If you would like to learn an easy way to make salt dough, or would like your students to learn how to make salt dough on their own, I created a short video for you!

Interested in learning more about The Daily Five Reading or the The Literacy CAFE? A good place to get more information about this wonderful balanced literacy structure is to visit The Daily Cafe or The Sisters’ website. Watch for more posts about Daily Five Reading and CAFE Literacy right here at BlueSofaMedia.com.

If you find this video helpful, please leave a comment below!

I created a short video for teachers, students, and/or parents demonstrating how easy, quick, and inexpensive it is to make Salt Dough.

Watch the video and learn how to make Salt Dough

Click here to view the embedded video.

Salt Dough can be used for many learning activities:

• Use Salt Dough as a tool to help student learn how to spell better
• Use Salt Dough instead of clay in art or science projects
• Use Salt Dough to make topographic maps

If you have a class website, why not embed this Salt Dough Video and encourage your students to make their own Salt Dough.

How do your students use Salt Dough?
Leave a comment below!

During the 2008-2009 school year I began using The Sisters’ (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) process of teaching balanced literacy to my fourth grade student: The Daily Five Reading and The Literacy CAFE.

Good Fit Books

One significant theme mentioned throughout Daily Five Reading and Literacy CAFE is teaching students to pick “good fit” books. An important part of becoming a successful independent reader is being able to choose “good fit” books. At the beginning of each year I start an all-year-long conversation with students about how to choose appropriate books. The anchor chart (pictured above and listed below) contains:

I PICK Good Fit Books
I choose a book
Purpose – Why do I want to read it?
Interest – Does it interest me?
Comprehend – Am I understanding what I read?
Know – Do I know most of the words?

In the “official” Daily Five Reading materials the Know states I know most of the words. I changed this to be more aligned with the other three questions. Although it doesn’t change the meaning at all, I prefer the question Do I know most of the words?. I see the I PICK method of choosing good fit books as a series of questions good readers ask themselves whenever and where ever they choose books to read.

Why Good Fit Books?

To me, taking time to teach students how to choose good fit books is well worth my time because it helps build confidence and independence.

When I observe a student in my classroom who is not interested or engaged during Read to Self time, a lot of times (but not all the time) it is because the student is attempting to read a book way beyond what he or she is capable of. I frequently tell my students that reading is making meaning and reading is thinking. Not understanding most of the words on any given page makes discovering meaning and thinking about the text extremely difficult and reading almost impossible to enjoy.

A student immersed in his good fit book.

My reading conferences at the beginning of the year consist largely of looking over each students book box and having a conversation about choosing good fit books. Some students pick up the idea right away. Other students need a lot of support and coaching throughout the year, but over time they begin to get better and better at choosing appropriate books for themselves.

As a teacher I get a lot of data about a students reading level. Sometimes this information is relevant and helpful, sometimes it is not. As part of my conversations I am always willing to share this data with students. But to me, simply giving a student a lexile score or DRA level is not enough to build lifelong, independent readers. I much prefer the I PICK method because, through repeated practice, it encourages thoughtful and reflective book selection.

Want to Know More?

Interested in learning more about Daily Five Reading or CAFE Literacy? Read related articles about Daily Five Reading and CAFE Literacy:

• Overview of the Daily Five and CAFE Literacy
• Read to Self: Great Books for Reluctant Readers
• Word Work: Salt Dough Spelling
• Reinforcing Daily Five Procedures and Expectations

During the 2008-2009 school year I began using The Sisters’ (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) process of teaching balanced literacy to my fourth grade students: Daily Five Reading and CAFE Literacy. Periodically I will post information, videos, or examples of how I am implementing this balanced literacy structure.

Daily Five Reading and Literacy CAFE

Daily Five Reading is just one more way to organize your balanced literacy instruction. It is very similar to what some people call “Reading Workshop” or “Reader’s Workshop”. Personally, I love how Daily Five Reading is structured around current reading and brain research and how it builds student independence. The Daily Five is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working independently for a lifetime of literacy independence.

Daily Five consists of five components that students (ideally) practice daily:

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

If Daily Five Reading is the structure for students, Literacy CAFE is the structure of teaching reading strategies and assessing students. CAFE stands for:

• Comprehension,
• Accuracy,
• Fluency,
• Expanding Vocabulary.

Through mini-lessons taught each day, strategies are added to the CAFE board (see picture above) and referred back to as necessary.

Here is a quick video snapshot of my classroom. Students are engaged in Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Work on Writing. In this video students chose which component of Daily Five Reading they wanted to work on, so all three activities are going on simultaneously. Students on the computers are writing science presentations, while other students are actively reading.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Want to Know More?

Interested in learning more about Daily Five Reading or CAFE Literacy? Read related articles about Daily Five Reading and CAFE Literacy:

• I PICK Good Fit Books
• Read to Self: Great Books for Reluctant Readers
• Word Work: Salt Dough Spelling
• Reinforcing Daily Five Procedures and Expectations