It's been awhile since I have done a Reading Snapshot but I wanted to post this before it becomes a distant memory. As most of you know, I switched not only schools, but grade levels as well! I can now happily say #iteachk :) This post is a bit of a throwback from when I taught first grade and I hope to use a modified version of my system later on in the year with my new kinders.
This is the board that was at the front of my meeting area. When introducing the D5 at the beginning of the year (through almost Thanksgiving!), we would focus on only one or two areas at a time. This picture shows us about three weeks in when we had established our stamina for Read to Self and were working on building our stamina for Read to Someone. We kept the "Read to Self I Chart" up as a reminder and also the stamina building graph for Read to Someone.
These two photos are of my actual set up which dictated most of the system I had developed in my classroom. Each leveled group in my class had a color. The students would keep their materials (folder, notebook, and what books we were currently reading) in the bin. The vertical shelf was tucked into the corner of my classroom library and hosted bins of "comfortable" books (Mo Willems, Dr. Seuss, Read Alouds, Chapter Books), paper for Word Work or Work on Writing, pencil cases, highlighters, crayons, and magnetic letters/magnetic whiteboards. This way everything the students needed was easily accessible, and more importantly, did not involve them needing me to stop what I was working on to get it or assist them.
These little desks were pure MAGIC for my D5 set up. The students pulled them out and could work independently on them for Work Work (picture 1) and Work on Writing (picture 2).
I kept the materials that I used for the Word Work in these little containers. Since I needed them to be totally independent I used my Wiki/Playdoh Sight Words and Letters Pack to keep the routines consistent. They also loved the hands-on, tactile aspect of the activities.
Each week we learned 6 new sight words, so I would put the new laminated word cards in the bin along with the record sheet, Wiki Stix, Playdoh and letter stamps (they were a constant in the bins). We would also keep some of the previous weeks' cards in there for review and practice as well.
Now for the nitty-gritty, see if you can follow me... I am fortunate enough to have always had an Assistant Teacher in my classroom. My literacy block was 60 minutes, so this model was based on 3 concurrently running stations, each station lasted 20 minutes. Station One was teacher led small group phonics instruction, Station Two was small group guided reading, and Station Three was independent Daily Five work. My students would circulate amongst all three stations during the 60 minutes in their leveled group. I would switch on and off with my AT on who would teach guided reading/phonics each week depending on what the kiddos needed. The D5 Station always stayed the same. Since we only had 60 minutes, 40 of which were spent with a teacher, I adjusted D5 a little; each day the students chose ONE option and stuck with that for the full 20 minutes.
Students working at my group doing guided reading with our WhisperMaPhones. You can read more about this post here.
And some small group phonics work.
Now, while Station One and Two are teacher led Station Three, aka D5, is completely and utterly independent! And that takes PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! I usually started introducing the modeling behaviors and stamina builders of Read to Self the second week of school, Read to Someone mid-third week, and practice those through week four. Week five was Word Work because at that point we had accumulated enough of a sight word vocabulary to work independently for 20 minutes.
I would sit at my kidney table, my AT would be at a group of desks, and the D5 would be independently working in my library. They could either Read to Self/Read to Someone on the bean bag chairs or take one of the mini lap desks and work on Word Work, Writing, or grab an iPad and Listen to Reading.
Practice makes perfect!!!
I know the main premise of the Daily Five is student choice. We discussed how each day the students could choose whatever they wanted, but they could only do each option ONCE per week. This way I ensure they were hitting each of the goals and not just always choosing the two most popular, Read to Someone and Word Work. To help keep them on track I created this checklist. It is a FREEBIE in my TpT Store. Woo hoo!
And, of course, since it was first grade and we always had a huge continuum of readers, our hallmark reading rule was....
And there you have it! I miss my D5 routines but am super excited to implement these in a meaningful, developmentally appropriate way in Kindergarten later on in the year.
Up next, how I organize my READNG BINDERS/planned for three simultaneous reading groups phonics, guided reading and Daily 5 activities each week.
