The Daily 5 literacy program that we use in my classroom is very similar to Book Club Plus. Just as Book Club focuses on writers’ workshop, teacher read aloud, shared reading and independent reading, the 5 components of the Daily 5 include read to self, read to someone, listening to reading, journal writing, and word work. Later as the students build their stamina and are more able to work independently, a teacher conferencing and guided reading group time is also worked into the Daily 5 rotation to target specific areas of need for specific students. Overall the main objective of the Daily 5 curriculum is to foster independence so that students continue to have productive experiences with literacy outside of the classroom and beyond the reach of the teacher’s constant instruction. The Book Club also seems to realize the importance of not just teaching children how to read and write, but establishing a foundation for how to make the right literacy choices for their individual situation. The Daily 5 gets as specific as how to sit when you are reading and how to choose a book and models everything for the students.
Besides the hour of Daily 5 a day, in my classroom we also have 55 minutes of Lucy Calkins writer’s workshop during which the students observe mini lessons about brainstorming and even the different genres of writing, and then are let loose to their seats to become authors. The motto is “when you think you are done, you’ve just begun.” During this time we walk around and have conferences with individual children about their writing and are able to get a pretty accurate informal assessment of where most of the students are with their writing abilities.
Throughout the remainder of the day we also have Read Aloud, Word Study, and Interactive Writing times. Read Aloud time’s focus is comprehension. The students listen to a story read aloud and then answer questions and discuss as a class. During Word Study we often work on spelling and pronouncing sight words that will be added to our word wall. Interactive Writing then comes at the end of the day as a “news time” where the students are asked to share a piece of “news” with the class that we will all work together to write on the board. Some students come up to the board and write a word, others spell/sound them out verbally, until we have one or two sentences of news and then we all read it as a class.
Overall, my students spend almost 4 hours a day on literacy. In my opinion the combination of the multiple reading and writing curriculums as well as the additional reading and word study my CT integrates into our daily routine covers pretty much all of the reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills as Book Club Plus.
Your day sounds so much like my class's day.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to comment on when you mentioned that the writers’ workshop conferences were excellent assessments.
I had my first opportunity to witness a writing conference this week. After the conference both the student and my CT were beaming. The student went away knowing what things she was doing well and what she could work on for a goal. My CT was encouraged by the skills the student was already demonstrating. What other assessments have such a positive outcome. Our article for this week also talked about some of the benefits to this type of assessment.