I am an literacy coach for a PreK-5th grade school. We have used Daily 5/Cafe for many years and our staff does a great job of teaching these to students. One thing that I see, no matter how many times students have been taught to find a good fit book, there are a few who will “fake” read. They will sit quietly during read to self. They will tell the teacher they have been reading and be able to give a “brief” idea of what they read. In reality, as I observe, they were not reading at all.

I have given the teachers suggestions such as:

talking with the students about the importance of reading the whole time - setting goals,

placing the student in a place where the teacher can always see the student,

placing the student in a quiet, more covered area to prevent other distractions,

giving the student an animal to read to (younger students),

give the student a sand timer to take a break between books (younger student),

giving the student a sticky note to write down a quick sentence about what they read (which can be tricky for a teacher to assess because it’s hard to know what every chapter in a classroom of 20 different books is about).

I am looking for other suggestions to especially get older students to truly read the entire read to self time,

Your suggestions are appreciated!

Trisha Nichelson

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