The Daily 5 and CAFE
Posted on September 1, 2014
It won’t be long until you hear your child talking about “The Daily Five.” The purpose of this post is to fill you in on what The Daily Five is all about.
The Daily Five is a way of structuring the reading block so every student is independently engaged in meaningful literacy tasks. These research based tasks are ones that will have the biggest impact on student reading and writing achievement, as well as help foster children who love to read and write. 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 it is up and running smoothly, students will be engaged in the Daily Five, which are comprised of:
- Read to Self
- Work on Writing
- Read to Someone
- Listen to Reading
- Word Work
There are very specific behavior expectations that go with each Daily 5 component. 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. I will also spend time learning about your child’s strengths and greatest needs as a reader in order to best plan for each student’s instruction.
One thing you might notice is a slight decrease in the number of worksheets your child brings home. Instead, they will be spending most of their time actually reading, which research supports as the number one way to improve reading. They will also work on sorting spelling words, using engaging materials to build and write words, and various forms of writing.
While the students are completing their literacy tasks, I will be meeting with small groups and conferencing with individual students.Daily 5 is how we schedule our language arts block. CAFE is what we study during this time. CAFE is an acronym for the four major components of reading. They are:
- C for Comprehension
- A for Accuracy
- F for Fluency
- E for Expanding Vocabulary
The children will learn reading strategies within each category. These strategies will become tools for the children to use to help themselves become better readers and writers.