Your Daily 5 Questions...My Answers

I'm on vacation this week, but I am scheduling some posts so I don't leave you all lonely!  I have recently been e-mailed by several people asking questions about Daily 5.  As I was answering each one, I thought that I should create a blog post about this because if one person is asking, there might be five more wondering.  So here goes...Questions are in bold, my answers follow.  

My thoughts are that I want to do both- the Daily 5 (or daily 3) AND reading workshop.  Do you do that in your classroom?

The Daily Five and The Book Whisperer are excellent books.  Those are definitely my go-to books for reading framework and instruction.  I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say Daily 5 and reading workshop, in my mind, they are essentially the same thing.  Have you read The CAFE Book, also by the Sisters?  It is the "instruction" piece to Daily 5.  

I was wondering how your day goes.

I have a two hour block for reading that consists of two 20 minute lessons (or one long 40 minute lesson, for new material), and three Daily 5 choices.  During the Daily 5 choices, I pull small groups for instruction.  Sometimes the small groups are strategy based, but more recently I have done strategy-based guided reading.  My district has Good Habits Great Readers, and although I don't use the series exactly as it is intended, I do like how the guided reading books and lessons are strategy based.  It fits very nicely with CAFE.  

How would you break down a 1 hour block for daily 5?

I don't know if Daily 5 is the best option for you if you only have one hour.  I would think your "mini-lessons" would need to be a bit longer since you don't get to see your students that often.  Maybe you could spend half the time in a whole-group lesson and the other half working with a small group.  While you're with your small group, the rest of the class could be doing independent reading with a book of their choice.  Have you read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller?  She offers a lot of great insight about reading instruction, and especially choice reading.