Why Do Daily 5?
1. The Best Part of Your Day
Daily 5 is the most peaceful time in our school day. You can feel a wave of calm wash over the room as soon as students make their rotations choices and settle into their spots.
2. Student Choice
One of the reasons that this is such a beautiful part of our day is the fact that students are given choice. They can choose between: Read to Self, Work on Writing, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, and Word Work. I record student choices on my Daily 5 Check In Sheet. Grab the freebie here. Since students are choosing what they will work on, when, and where they will sit, they are engaged and focused.
3. Book Choice
Students are also given choice in a second way. By allowing them to self select books to put in their book boxes, they are reading books that interests them. This helps to ramp up engagement which contributes to the calm classroom environment.
4. Independence
Another one of Daily 5’s big components is building independence. We start the year by building stamina in the 5 rotations. Students learn to do these tasks completely independently. Practicing this independence helps students to apply this skill in all parts of their day which is a bonus! Students’ independence allows me to confer with students to provide individualized instruction.
5. Runs Smoothly
Daily 5 runs smoothly after the leg work at the beginning of the year. All that’s left to do is plan and teach mini lessons!
6. Individualized Instruction
Running my literacy block this way also allows me to give individual attention to each student, when they need it. I can support students in their reading and writing. Since I can confer with them one on one, I can meet their needs and spend extra time with any students that need more support. This allows students to make great gains in their literacy skills over the course of the year.
7. Independent Practice
Direct instruction is done in short mini lessons. I teach for a maximum of 10 minutes at a time. The majority of our Daily 5 time is spent in rotations. This means that students are spending most of their time practicing literacy skills. Research suggests that reading just 20 minutes a day can have a large impact on students’ literacy skills so this framework is a win!
To read more on this topic check out my blog post entitled “The Beauty of Daily 5“.
