The Daily CAFE Getting Started Guide

The Daily CAFE was designed to provide a professional development experience to enhance your teaching and create immediate success for both you and your students! Whether you are new to Daily 5 and CAFE or have been using them for years, the Daily CAFE will provide you with downloads, articles, videos, and discussion-board conversations to enhance your instruction. There are more than 2,500 pages of content to provide support and meet your needs.  This guide provides a sampling of what you will find and will help to get you started.

Daily 5

Our first suggestion is to read the second edition of The Daily 5. You will learn not only about the Daily 5, but about how we have refined our Daily 5 practice since the first edition came out.  Read it cover to cover, making note of questions you have or ideas that stand out. Then, using key words from the questions you have written down, use the search feature on the site to discover answers.

The following resources will supplement and add to your Daily 5 expertise:

Three Ways to Read a Book

• Three Ways to Read a Book
• Three Ways to Read a Book—Even in Intermediate

Good-Fit Books / I-PICK

• Good-Fit Bookmark
• Picking Good-Fit Books
• Providing Time to Choose Books
• Modeling I-PICK
• Good-Fit Books for Intermediate Students

Book Boxes

• A Book-Box Tour
• Managing Book Boxes
• Sixth-Grade Book Boxes
• Emergent-Reader Book Boxes

Independence

• 10 Steps to Independence

Check-In and Release

• Smooth Check-In
• Providing Additional Support
• Adding a Goal and Strategy
• Third Graders Check In
• Smooth Release

Quick Start Guides for

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

Barometer Children

• 5 Levels of Support for Barometer Children
• Troubleshooting
• Releasing Barometer Students
• Behavior Goals
• Acrostic to the Rescue

CAFE

Our first suggestion is to read The CAFE Book. Read it cover to cover, making note of questions you have or ideas that stand out. You may wish to use our CAFE Book Study to guide you as you read. Then, using key words from the questions you have written down, use the search feature on the site to discover answers.

After you have had an initial introduction to CAFE, the following links will help to deepen your understanding:

CAFE Menu

• Interactive CAFE Menu—This resource is a gold mine!
• Intermediate CAFE Menu
• Highly Capable Students
• CAFE Menu: Assessing Knowledge
• Sticky Notes
• Ordering Off the Menu
• Literacy CAFE Menu

Conferring Notebook

• A Tour of the Conferring Notebook and Downloadable Forms
• Recording Goals and Strategies

Strategy Groups

• Strategy Group Method & Form
• From Guided to Strategy Groups
• Grouping Students by Needs
• Fluency Strategy Group
• Spelling Patterns Small Group
• Small Group Vocabulary Work

Whole-Group Focus Lesson

• Whole Group Using Three Strategies
• Check for Understanding
• Planning for Whole Group

Individual Conferring

• Fluency Lesson
• Coaching Towards a Target
• Fine-Tuning a Conference
• Tips on Conferring
• Goal-Setting Conference

The Daily CAFE has a tremendous variety of resources that are not listed here.  Other items that may be of interest to you are Ready Reference Guides, Common Core-Aligned Menus, Book Looks, Lit Lessons, Parent Pipelines, and more. New material is added weekly so you can learn right along with us! Enjoy!