By Melanie Quinn
As a school, we are launching Daily 5 throughout the building this year. As I visit classrooms in my role as Instructional Coach, I am encouraged by what I am seeing. Children are engaged in their reading, teachers are documenting their teaching and student growth during one-on-one conferring, and our students are making progress. We are learning as we go and one of our lessons is the slow, systematic teaching each of the Daily 5 components requires.
Our goal is to have focused, engaged students whether they are working on writing, word work or listening to someone read. However, sometimes in our excitement and exuberance to get Daily 5 up and running, we have rushed the process and the result is a noisy, busy classroom which has more of a "centers" feel where children are talking and moving about than an engaged workshop. In debriefing with teachers following a visit to their classroom, I try to respectfully nudge them into slowing down and rewinding their class back to their I-charts. In my own classroom last year, I found focusing on one component, i.e. Read to Someone, whole-class helped us know what the room feels like, sounds like and looks like during this particular time. I also reflected with my students the commonalities shared among all Daily 5 components. For example, although there was a "buzz" during Read to Someone time, everyone still stayed put and read 100% of the time -- just like during Read to Self.
As we head into the holiday season, pushing the rewind button provides us a perfect time to refocus on the components of Daily 5 so that our teaching and students' engagement is both meaningful and productive. A side benefit to this strategy is our ability to ensure a calm classroom environment while things are winding up all around us!
Melanie is a literacy coach in Portland, Oregon. She has recently been a classroom teacher and college instructor as well.