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Starting this past fall, Montevideo Public Schools have implemented what is known as the Daily 5 plan to guide reading instruction at the elementary level.
“Students are growing as readers and writers,” said Kelly Klaassen, multi-age teacher at Ramsey Elementary School. “(Daily 5) is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working independently that will lead to a lifetime of literacy independence.”
“The teachers in the elementary grades had heard of it and chose it for their Professional Learning Community (PLC) work,” said Cheryl Bjornstad, district curriculum coordinator. “Some had read the book earlier and were ‘sort of’ implementing it.”
Presently grades 1-3 are using Daily 5 while kindergarten is starting to add the principles.
Daily 5 is not a new reading program, but, as Bjornstad pointed out, there wasn’t a need for a new reading program. Daily 5 is more of a management tool that helps teachers structure their reading instruction time to better prepare students to work independently.
Veteran elementary teachers Gail Boushey and Joan Moser developed Daily 5. They found a specific need to fill in their classrooms as research again and again indicated a value of a 90-minute literacy instruction block. For them, this time span did not match up with the attention span of their 6- to 8-year-old students.
Reading teachers used to employ a teacher-driven approach that relied heavily on artificial reading practice and busywork. This gave way to more progressive formats that started with activity centers and evolved into reader workshops. At this point, instruction became more student-centered, but chaotic, at times.
Boushey and Moser then created Daily 5 to manage the environment while maintaining the student-driven focus.
“It is about developing shared awareness and instructional routines with students, through specific, focused teaching, while balancing students’ needs for choice and independence,” Boushey and Moser state in their book.
Like a stations approach before, students focus on specific literary needs, sometimes in a large group, sometimes small groups, and sometimes individually.
“It’s not totally different,” pointed out second-grade teacher Amanda Blom, comparing the new approach to what she had been doing. “We are still able to use our existing reading curriculum.”
During both teacher-led instructional time and self-led independent time, students center their energies on five learning activities.
“The five components include read to self, read to someone, word work, work on writing, and listen to reading,” Klaassen said.
Starting this past fall, Montevideo Public Schools have implemented what is known as the Daily 5 plan to guide reading instruction at the elementary level.
“Students are growing as readers and writers,” said Kelly Klaassen, multi-age teacher at Ramsey Elementary School. “(Daily 5) is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working independently that will lead to a lifetime of literacy independence.”
“The teachers in the elementary grades had heard of it and chose it for their Professional Learning Community (PLC) work,” said Cheryl Bjornstad, district curriculum coordinator. “Some had read the book earlier and were ‘sort of’ implementing it.”
Presently grades 1-3 are using Daily 5 while kindergarten is starting to add the principles.
Daily 5 is not a new reading program, but, as Bjornstad pointed out, there wasn’t a need for a new reading program. Daily 5 is more of a management tool that helps teachers structure their reading instruction time to better prepare students to work independently.
Veteran elementary teachers Gail Boushey and Joan Moser developed Daily 5. They found a specific need to fill in their classrooms as research again and again indicated a value of a 90-minute literacy instruction block. For them, this time span did not match up with the attention span of their 6- to 8-year-old students.
Reading teachers used to employ a teacher-driven approach that relied heavily on artificial reading practice and busywork. This gave way to more progressive formats that started with activity centers and evolved into reader workshops. At this point, instruction became more student-centered, but chaotic, at times.
Boushey and Moser then created Daily 5 to manage the environment while maintaining the student-driven focus.
“It is about developing shared awareness and instructional routines with students, through specific, focused teaching, while balancing students’ needs for choice and independence,” Boushey and Moser state in their book.
Like a stations approach before, students focus on specific literary needs, sometimes in a large group, sometimes small groups, and sometimes individually.
“It’s not totally different,” pointed out second-grade teacher Amanda Blom, comparing the new approach to what she had been doing. “We are still able to use our existing reading curriculum.”
During both teacher-led instructional time and self-led independent time, students center their energies on five learning activities.
“The five components include read to self, read to someone, word work, work on writing, and listen to reading,” Klaassen said.
These skills match well with the activities teachers were already using.
The change in instruction comes from helping kids better use the independent time. As Blom pointed out, teachers have to spend more time teaching students how to work independently.
“It’s a lot of modeling to show kids independent reading.”
She also points out that kids start the year reading independently for as little as one minute at a time until they can learn the expected behavior.
“Students build stamina during the first weeks of school so they can work independently while the teacher is teaching small groups of student,” Klaassen adds. “Because of the routines and procedures, the quality of students’ work time is far greater than before using the Daily 5.”
Teachers are able to use many of the same successful teaching tools they have used in the past. Daily 5 simply helps them manage the program.
“I am able to work with students one-on-one or in small groups and the noise level is low, so students are able to accomplish different tasks,” Klaassen said. “Teachers have seen a lot of growth in students’ reading and writing abilities.”
Klaassen does point out, though, that teachers have to relinquish control to the students in various situations.
Although initial reports from teachers are positive, they are finding materials and other resources that they need to make it more effective hard to come by. Book boxes, one of the core tenets of Daily 5, help students keep reading independently, but filling them with the right books takes money. Klaassen has also found MP3-players valuable as students listen to reading, but she’s limited on how many she can buy with her classroom budget.
For now, teachers are using Daily 5 almost exclusively for reading and other literacy instruction, but the district is looking to apply these principles to math instruction as well.
“It really fits for any grade level,” Klaassen says. “We’ll see the benefits of it in another year or so.”
