The Daily 5 - Chapter One

Whew - two posts in one day - but I just joined the Linky Party at Lory's Page for The Daily 5.

I'm trying to remember how I first came across this book this spring - it was probably from one of the blogs that I've been reading since the end of February when I learned I would be teaching Grade 1 this year.  I know that I borrowed a copy from our school system's library, and read it in one evening, knowing that I would definitely be buying my own. 

Since then I have read through parts of it several times, and I am so excited to get started on the program this fall.  The more I think about it - and especially now, the more I read about what other people have done - the more convinced I am that this is the way to go in Language Arts teaching.

What made me SO happy yesterday morning was an e-mail from one of my new colleagues.  She'll be teaching a combined Grade 2/3 class (A, if you stumble across this through the link that I sent you, hello!) and went to observe at another school last week.  They were using Daily 5 so she saw it in action and let me know how much she loved it.  She is also going to buy the book and we are looking forward to talking about it this summer.

Because I haven't been doing much classroom teaching in the last few years - and because the classroom teaching I was doing was in a shared position, and I don't feel that we had a really coherent literacy plan - I don't have much to contribute as to what I am doing now, and what I would do differently.  However, I can share my thoughts about the book based on what I have seen and what I would like to do next year.

I do find that the Gr. 1 teacher at my current school does a lot of "busy work".  The work that I see displayed definitely follows a format and you can tell that a lot of the time children are copying phrases that are on the board for them, rather than doing their own writing.  My impression is that for the most part, the majority of the children are doing the same thing at the same time.  I know that she has adult volunteers who read or practise spelling with the kids, but I don't believe that she does Guided Reading in the way I've seen it described, or Word Work.  Looking on, it seems that her classroom and style of teaching resembles what The Sisters describe on page 4 about their first years of teaching.

It's very easy to be critical of others when you are not in their shoes, and I admit that I have had these moments in the 9 years that I was a specialist, not a classroom teacher.  I have often thought that our teachers haven't spent enough time establishing routines with the kids in my school and it's reflected in their behaviour, particularly during transition times (i.e., when they're coming to see me!).  Reading this sentence, "It is this explicit teaching and practicing of behaviors that sets the Daily Five apart from the other management systems we have tried over the years" was like having an "Aha!" moment.  This is what I thought was lacking in my own school - explicit teaching and practising of behaviours.  I knew this was the book for me.  Seeing Richard Allington and Michael Pressley cited as "favorite colleagues" cemented the deal, as I am in love with the book Learning to Read:  Lessons From Exemplary First-Grade Classrooms - another wonderful book I stumbled upon when searching about how to teach Grade 1 - of which they are co-authors (with 3 others).  I already had this book when I saw it listed in the Daily 5 Research Base on page 11.

So, those are my first ramblings.  I look forward to sharing this journey with you and hope to get to "know" some of you in the blogosphere!  I need to write down questions for future chapters!