The Five Areas of Daily 5
- Read to self
- Read to someone
- Word Work
- Work on Writing
- Listen to Reading
Unlike my last post about literacy centers; instead of seven centers their are five centers. Daily 5 is a very popular right now and their are many different ways to go about using daily 5. Three ways I have heard or seen it being done are; to have the class go through the stations together, to separate them into groups like my first post, or to allow the students to have choice (allowing them to pick which daily five they do each day). The set up is similar with literacy centers, where there is a mini lesson before rotations begin. For beginning teachers Daily 5 is great because it gives set lessons; to start off your teaching it give you anchor charts and organizational tips. It also talk about the amount of time each idea take, the importance of the five areas and how to introduce daily five over time. The ideas in the text sets the students up successful in each of the centers. It scaffolds the learning and allows teachers to experiment with the idea, so they can find what works best for them. One big thing it stresses is to introducing 1 of the daily 5 area’s at a time, allowing students to gain fluency and stamina for each area. The book also talks about classroom set up and how to organize your classroom to allow for learning.
Like the centers in the last post, their are some similarities, which reinforces their importance. In my practicum class right now we are doing daily five and I can see how these centers allow the students to be independent and allow for the teacher to really work with children individually and in small groups. In our class, so far, our teacher has only introduces the first three areas above. I am excited to see how my mentor teacher introduces the other two areas of the Daily 5 to the class. Anchor charts are the bases of many of these lessons, which are helpful for the students to become successful.
I would like to stress that Daily 5 should not be the only literacy that the class does, in my class we still do writers workshop once or twice a week and even in the literacy centers from my last post the teacher had another time of the day for more writing activity’s as a class. These centers allow for more exploration.These areas allow for the practice new skills, creation of new ideas and manipulation of words. Daily Cafe is one thing that can go along with Daily 5 to enhance the students learning much like writers workshop.
Here is a link to the Daily CAFE website with more Daily 5 ideas along with Math Daily 3 and Classroom Design.