Daily Five, Café, and Balanced Literacy

I have heard teachers ask, “If we are doing Daily Five are we still doing balanced literacy?”  The answer is, “Yes!”

Daily Five Reading is just one way to organize your balanced literacy instruction.  The great thing is, Daily Five Reading is structured around current reading and brain research.  It also fosters student independence.

In a nutshell, the Daily Five is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working independently for a lifetime of literacy independence.  The Daily Five also gives teachers a structure for the providing balanced literacy instruction to their students. 

The Daily Five provides a structure for balanced literacy instruction.  The Literacy CAFÉ is the structure of teaching reading strategies and assessing students.

CAFÉ stands for:  Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expanding Vocabulary.

The following are benefits from using the Daily Five and CAFÉ, as a structure in your classroom:

• Teaching of independence

• Management of the entire literacy block

• Focus lessons and more intentional teaching

• Substantial time to read and write

• Integration of reading and writing

• Clearly defined instructional routines that accelerate learning

• Build stamina

• Highly engaged learners

• Students to understand and monitor their literacy goals

Great Daily Five and Café Resources:

http://www.sanjuan.edu/webpages/gguthrie/balanced_literacy.cfm?subpage=127464

https://sites.google.com/site/balancedlitteach/

Listen to Reading websites:

http://www.storylineonline.net/

http://www.rif.org/readingplanet/content/read_aloud_stories.mspx

http://www.kids-and-games.com/stories.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/story/sbi.shtml

http://www.candlelightstories.com/soundstoryblog/SoundStoryBlog.htm

http://www.starfall.com/

http://www.storiestogrowby.com/

http://www.dreamtime.net.au/dreaming/storylist.htm

Author Websites

http://www.robertmunsch.com/storytime.cfm

http://www.memfox.net/mem-reads-aloud/

Subscription Websites:

http://www.raz-kids.com