Second Grade Reading
The Daily 5
This year I will be using the strategies of the Daily 5 within my reading teaching to foster student learning. The Daily 5 encourages the use of 5 primary practices daily to encourage student learning. I will be focusing on developing student's reading stamina, sense of urgency, muscle memory, and literary independence. (These terms are defined below) Our reading block will be 2 hours. GASP! No worries, your children will be able to handle this. This block will include the students working on the following five daily routines to increase their own literary independence. We will gradually build to working on each of the five routines for twenty to thirty minutes per day.
1. Read to self- What is it? It is exactly how it sounds. The students read to themselves using the three ways to read a book. They either read the words, look at the pictures and tell the story from the pictures, or they summarize the book using the words and pictures.
2. Read to someone-What is it? Students will find a partner to share their book with by reading them the story or section of the story. Students will take turns reading to their partner. The students will be trained to help one another if they get stuck on a word. The student will have the option of giving help to figure out the word, or to give the student more time to figure the word out on their own. If the student chooses for the other student to give help figuring out the word the student will have a list of strategies to help the student figure out the word. The strategies are: give a clue, sound the word out with them, say the letters of the word, read the rest of the sentence and leave that word out, or tell them what the word is. Training the students is so crucial because they are a critical component of this program. Students benefit from working with their peers because it helps them to teach one another and it also helps them to have students use the same strategies that I use with students to help them decode new words. This extra practice is so beneficial for all students.
3. Listen to reading- This can come in a couple of different forms. The most common form will be students listening to text on tape. This may not seem appropriate for all students; especially those students who are reading at an advanced level. However, research is indicating that students are deficient in the area of auditory comprehension. Listening to stories helps students to better develop an understanding of what they hear. This will translate to much more comprehension of all that they hear; including what they are being taught in other subjects. In addition, if they hear a story and following along with the text it will increase their fluency. Fluency is the speed, accuracy, and intonation of the students reading.
4. Working on writing- Why work on writing during reading time? Writing and reading are a team. A student who is strong in one area is a powerful student, but a student who is strong in the area of both is unstoppable! During this time students will be working on writing about what they are reading. This may take the form of a letter to me, a friend, or parents about what they are reading at school. They may also work on writing from their writer's notebook that we begin to work on during writer's workshop. Writing is second only to speaking as the most important form of communication. Reading is also second only to listening in ways we acquire information. Thus, working on them as a pair really boosts student's brain power!
5. Working with words-During the daily 5 block students will work on phonemic awareness through several structured activities that will not only help students correctly spell, but also correctly decode words. These activities will prove to increase their ability to better understand our crazy spelling patterns in the English language. It will be much, much more than just memorizing a list of words. Instead it will be a combination of patterning, rhyming, and sorting words. I know this is completely different from the way that you were taught to spell. It is completely different for me too! I believe that it is what is best for students and that is why I believe that I have to teach it this way!
1. What in the world is reading stamina, muscle memory, sense of urgency, and literary independence?
I know, schools use the craziest terminology and acronyms. We need to just say what we mean, right?!
reading stamina: Being able to read for a sustained amount of time without interrupting themselves and others around them. It has been recently discovered that while students can read in the upper grades they often aren't reading for an extended period of time. They read for ten to fifteen minutes and they are done. It is not their fault necessarily. How can it be if they have never been given the opportunity to practice sustaining reading for twenty-thirty minutes? You may see this at home too. They are sitting there reading and suddenly they need a drink, or a snack. I encourage you to help build their reading stamina at home too. One good way is for you to read while your child is reading. Reinforce to them that you don't want to be disturbed and that you don't want to disturb them. Quietly redirect them if they become interrupted and ask them to stay focused. In the classroom we will start by sustaining three minutes of independent silent reading. If they are not able to do that we will start the time over again so they know the importance of reading independently and silently.
muscle memory: This refers to developing the positive habit of reading. We develop habits in our brain the same way our muscles respond to exercise. The more you do it, the stronger you become. By doing things over and over again we begin to do things automatically. That is the point of doing the daily 5. By doing each of these components each day the students will develop a habit of doing them and their brain will in a sense become stronger!
sense of urgency: We both know how important it is that your child learns to read! We want them to do it as fast as possible because when they learn to read everything else falls into place. Students who struggle with reading will struggle with many academic aspects. That is why we need to instill in the children the importance of them learning to read and being able to read independently. So often we forget to tell children why we have them doing what we do in the classroom or even at home. They need to realize that we are teaching them to read because we want them to read NOW! If they feel the same way then they will work harder to help themselves. After all that is why they are learning. Not for their teacher or parents, rather, for themselves!
Literary independence: Being a lifelong reader without prompting. Selecting appropriate texts and reading them to completion on their own.
2. What is the teacher doing during this time where students are building their reading stamina, muscle memory, sense of urgency, and literary independence?
The teacher is snoozing. Just kidding! I wanted to make sure you were still awake after reading this LONG description. The teacher is meeting with small groups to provide individualized instruction based on the needs of individual students. With the other students busy doing the daily 5 I will not be disturbed and other students will not be distracted.
3. What about skills? Skills will be addressed in whole group during the daily 5 and during the guided reading block. The students will not be practicing these skills on worksheets, rather they will be practicing them within the reading block class. You will be seeing occasional work from reading class, but it is my hope that you will SEE what we are doing in reading class because of the improvement you SEE in your child's reading. I will keep you posted on your child's reading progress. You just need to be aware that you may not see the number of worksheets coming home that you may be expecting. It isn't that we aren't working. We are working on the application of the skill in context. We all learn best by doing. That is what I intend to recreate. Students learning by applying their knowledge to what we are doing in class.
