Over the course of a couple of weeks, my kindergartners learned that there are three ways to read a book - read the pictures, read the words and retell a familiar story. I demonstrated with several books with few words. When we launched “read to self” their book boxes contained several books with pictures only so they were ready to read independently and did well! I hope that helps you. I also did what you did - discussing the word, Independent, and that was also very helpful.

I also modeled for my students the three ways to read a book. Once this was modeled the kids were great at it. They love read to self and showing others they can read as well. Once we went further in the year they started noticing words they knew and sounding out unfamiliar words. They began using the CAFE menu as they learned to read.

Before we start building stamina, I teach several mini-lessons first over about a week. We don’t practice building stamina until the 5th day. Here is what it looks like…
Day 1 - What does it mean to be independent? I read the book “All By Myself” by Aliki and we create an anchor chart of all things students can do independently with ‘I can…’ statements.
Day 2 & 3 - Three Ways to Read a Book
We first read a book by reading the pictures, then by reading the text, and last rereading the next day and creating an anchor chart for the 3 ways.
Day 3 - Where is the best place to read?
We read “The Best Place to Read” by Debbie Bertram and create an anchor chart of all of the places to read to self in the room.
Day 4 - I-Chart for “Read to Self” and role play behaviors
Day 5 - What does stamina mean?
We read “Dex, the Heart of a Hero” by Caralyn Buehner and we discuss training to build our read to self stamina. We then practice Read to Self for the first time using all of the information we have learned.
After that we review all of the anchor charts daily and practice building stamina. We don’t have official “rounds” going until we have successfully launched Read to Self and Work on Writing and they are able to be independent without breaking stamina for at least 10-15 minutes. It takes time! Slow but steady wins the race when launching Daily 5 with Kinders! It might mean your 1:1 conferring and small strategy groups are not up and running for a little while, but it is well worth it in the end.