Daily 5 Posters Freebie

School starts tomorrow!! I am so excited and a little anxious to meet my kids and get the year going! This will be my third year using Daily 5 as a management tool for literacy stations and CAFE as a guided reading and mini-lesson structure/philosophy for lack of a better word :) I made these posters to hang as I introduce each station and I plan to put "I can" statements next to or underneath each one. I thought I would share them with you...here is the link Daily 5 Posters (email me if they link doesn't work, and I'd be happy to send them to you!).

Here's an example of what they look like:

Please feel free to grab them if they'll work for you! I just ask that you become a follower if you download them :) 

I'll let you know how introducing read to self and hopefully a few others goes this week! I have loved reading about how D5 is going in other bloggers' rooms!!

Daily 5 Organization...Plus a Freebie

Daily 5 Organization

I have been trying to figure out how to make an easy template for my students to keep track of their Daily 5 choices. This is what I came up with. I have each day color coded right now for my students to easily differentiate each day. The numbers in each box represent each round of literacy stations. My students will just circle which station they do for each round. I have it this way because I hope to have my students choose their stations as part of morning work (while they are turning in homework, eating breakfast, choosing new take home books) to save time.  The only thing all my students must do each day is Read to Self, and they must do one reading response each week. 

Uh Oh

The only thing I am a little nervous about is allowing my students to choose all of their stations all of the time. I am a bit of a control freak...I can't help it...and I keep thinking what happens if 8 people choose RAZ-kids at the same time even though we only have 4 computers??? I can just see chaos now! Furthermore, I was thinking of assigning quarterly "reading buddies" for read to someone in order to PRC2 effectively (see a previous post). Does anyone have any good ideas about how to manage letting the kiddos choose their stations?

Storage 

I plan to use 2 pocket folders with three prongs in the middle for my students' reading folders. I will include this template (enough for the quarter) as well as paper for reading responses (divided by a tab for organization) in the three prongs. The two pockets will be used for mini-lesson handouts as well as guided reading assignment sheets/assignments. 

If you want a copy...download here!

I can never figure out google docs. If it doesn't work for you, let me know. I'd be happy to email it to you!

PRC2: The New Partner Reading

Like so many of you out there, I use the Daily 5 to manage my literacy stations. Partner reading is one of my favorite stations, and I recently came across a way to make it even more meaningful! I am in graduate school getting a masters in reading and my professor at my summer practicum was involved in creating the PRC2 (Partner Reading and Content too) model for partner reading. PRC2 can be used at any grade level and is for mainly reading in the content area, but I'm sure it can be adapted for fiction reading as well. The goal of PRC2  is to get students talking/ having discussions about what they are reading, and consequently develop their comprehension of informational text. I have heard so many teachers say that they have students who are fluent fiction readers, but when it comes to nonfiction the kids are lost. This is an awesome way to get students interested in content, focused on what they are reading, and forces them to monitor their comprehension. I have seen multiple vidoes, read the book, and tried it myself last week at my practicum, and I so far I love it. I can't wait to try it with my 2nd graders!

Here's how it works:
1. Make sure you have a variety of levels on the same theme, as students should be reading at their independent or high instructional level (I wrote a donorschoose grant for books on the science topics we cover to add to my collection)

2. I am considering matching students monthly by reading level as "reading buddies"

3. Partners choose a text they want to read. I am going to have bins of books available specifically for this purpose

4. Students sit shoulder to shoulder and divide the pages. If there is text on both side of the page, one student is responsible for the left page and the other is responsible for the right side.

5. Read both pages together (silently if students are ready for that or orally)

6. Reread the page you are responsible for and come up with a question to as your partner

7. Optional - "performance read" - student reads aloud the page they are responsible for. This works on fluency, but if my students are not doing any silent reading I will skip this step

8. Partner 1 asks Partner 2 his/her question (see template). Partners discuss

9. Partner 2 asks Partner 1 his/her question. Partners discuss

10. Record their fndings/new learning

11. Repeat for next set of pages.

*If there is very limited amount of text on a page - have each partner do two pages or even more. Teachers need to model, model, model what to do with different text structures so there is enough text to have discussion, but not too much text that comprehension is lost. I am thinking about dividing the text by headings if appropriate. For the lower level texts (A-G) they may have to read the entire book, take turns reading the pages and both come up with questions about the same text, if that makes sense.

Here are some mini-lesson ideas for teaching PRC2

- How to divide the text
- Thick/Thin questions
- How to ask follow-up questions
- What to do when your partner doesn't know how to answer your question
- How to fill out the PRC2 recording sheet


You can get the book on Amazon for under $5 - well worth it!
http://www.amazon.com/Partnering-Content-Literacy-Developing-Academic/dp/0132458748/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310226719&sr=1-1

Here is a form I re-created and modified from the book that I plan on using this year with 2nd graders. I hope the link works!

PRC2 recording sheet/ tips

Daily 5/ CAFE

So many people are blogging about daily 5 and CAFE so I thought I would join in the fun! I have been doing daily 5 and cafe for two years now and just love it!

Last year, my literacy stations included: read to self, partner reading, RAZ-kids, work work, work on writing, and reading response. Literacy Stations was by far my kids' favorite part of the day. They love having choice at each station as I have multiple activities at the word work, work on writing stations, and reading response station and they choose their own books (with guidance in choosing "just right books") for partner reading, independent reading, and RAZ-kids.

This year I am thinking of adding a fluency station. At this station I will have repeated reading passages with stopwatches for students to track (on graphs) their oral reading rate, poetry, readers theater, rhythm walk sentence strips, and anything else I can come up with!

What I love about the CAFE model of guided reading is that it allows me to differentiate for more than just level - I can group by strategy! I love the actual menu and showing students what strategy we are working on and why we are working on it. The goal sheets are so nice for 2nd grade because it allows students to take ownership for their learning and gives independent reading a purpose. I also really like the idea that I might need to meet with some students in individual conferences as opposed to small groups. If you haven't read the book, I strongly recommend it! The sisters are geniuses :)

The schedule went like this:
- 15-20 minute comprehension mini-lesson focusing on explicit strategy instruction and always using read alouds
- 20-25 minute independent reading - students have book boxes (I meet with guided reading group)
- 10 minute accuracy/decoding/phonics mini-lesson
- 20 minute "round" of literacy stations (I meet with guided reading group)
- 10 minute fluency/ vocabulary min-lesson
- 20 minute "round" of literacy stations (I meet with guided reading group)

Here is a picture of our CAFE board at some point in the middle of the year...a work in progress!