Our Literacy Block - Daily 5

Dear Parents and Guardians,

            It is important to me that I provide my students with a literacy program that most benefits them as they become readers, writers and lifelong learners. My goal is to introduce classroom routines and structures in a way that removes all of the guesswork from the children and allows them to concentrate fully on learning. In reading, the classroom structure I use is called “The Daily 5”.  The purpose of this letter is to fill you in on what the Daily 5 is all about.

            The Daily 5 is a way of structuring the language block so every student is independently engaged in meaningful literacy tasks. Students receive explicit whole group instruction and then are given independent practice time to read and write independently while I provide focused, intense instruction to individuals and small groups of students.

            When the program is up and running smoothly, students will be engaged in the Daily 5, which is comprised of:

        1.  Read to self

2.  Working with words

The WWW will form part of our Daily 5 and we will work on independent tasks with the words as the week progresses. However, every Monday your child will write new word wall words in their agenda. A WWW quiz will be given each Friday. All words on the weekly list will follow a common spelling pattern or rule and sometimes the words will also follow a certain theme depending on the time of year. On Monday’s the students will bring home their WWW notebook. I have asked them to write a sentence for each WWW. Of course, they can combine the WWW into more than one sentence.  This homework is due on Friday.

3.  Read to/with someone

4.  Writing

5.  Listen to reading

We will spend our first weeks working intensely on building our reading and writing stamina, learning the behaviors of the Daily 5 and fostering our classroom community.  When all five tasks have been introduced and the children are fully engaged in reading and writing activities, I am able to work with small groups and confer with children one on one. Once our Daily 5 is up and running I encourage you to ask your child about it and see what he/she has to say. I anticipate your child will tell you about the class stamina, how we are working towards independence, and maybe you will even hear about some of the fantastic things your child has written, read, or listened to during our structured reading time.