Four Resources to Share with Administrators

We can share these four things with administrators to give them a solid understanding of what we are doing in our Daily 5/CAFE classrooms.

1. Plans for the first day, which is when we establish that we are going to be a room of readers.
2. Foundation Lessons, which show how building behaviors of independence will unfold in the days to come.
3. The 10 Steps to Teaching and Learning Independence. Beginning with Read to Self, students learn the behaviors of independence and work to build stamina. We use these 10 steps to teach almost everything.
4. Once Daily 5 is up and running and students are assessed, we provide short bursts of whole-group instruction between Daily 5 rounds based on the CAFE Menu and what our students need most. The rest of our instruction takes place one-on-one and/or in small groups. A high level of accountability is built in for students and ourselves via a conferring notebook, either in paper/pencil form or online. When using the online version, we share students with our administrator, who is welcome to join a child at any time and will know exactly what goals and strategies they are working on.

Once administrators see the high level of independence and differentiated instruction, they will become Daily 5 and CAFE fans, too.