Introduction to the Daily 5

Introduction to the Daily 5 – Key Points of the Introduction and the True Account of a Teacher Who Swears by It!

Key Points	Reflections/or New Learning
Before they implemented the Daily 5, the teachers were tired, exhausted. They were trying to conduct guided reading, but were interrupted by children misbehaving at centres, off task behaviour. They had piles of work sheets to mark and the work produced at centres was sub par.	Before I implemented the Daily 5 in my room I too was constantly strained and tired. I dreaded centre time, and preferred quiet rows. I remember feeling sick when I saw what work the students produced at centres. I mastered my teacher stare/glare at the off task students in groups, as I was trying to conduct guided reading. Generally, I would go home stressed and unhappy. The Daily 5 kind of fell into place for me at the right time. One year I had a very challenging class. At lunch I would vent about my daily horrors as I tried to fit in Guided Reading time while managing my class. I swore that Guided Reading was impossible with a class like this! It really didn’t click for my class until the Daily 5 was in place. It allowed me to “work smart, not hard!”
After the Daily 5 was implemented the teachers had a quiet and calm classroom. There was a quite buzz in the room. Students are independent. Students are engaged. Students had choice so they enjoyed: Read to Self Read to Someone Writing activities Word wall/Spelling activities	Once Daily 5 in place, my room remained calm, and organized. There were few behaviour problems because the students were independent and engaged. The students would know the routines and needed little direction. This would allow me uninterrupted time for Guided Reading. They really enjoyed the structured freedom of the Daily 5. I was surprised at how well it was embraced (even by students with learning disabilities and behavioural concerns) They loved their book boxes. We called them book nooks as they were filled with just right books that interested them. It did take some time to level my classroom library and create the booknooks. Once read to self is establish, the other parts of the daily 5 are introduced. They require minimal work to set up.
Students need to be taught independence	Required a lot of modelling and practise but worth the effort- Daily 5 book shows you exactly how to do this
A Student Driven management system	Equals happy students and a happy teacher Because I had time to work with students in small groups, it really made a huge difference in their reading and writing I would go home happy and enjoy my evenings with my daughter