Saturday, September 24, 2011

Read to Self

I am SO THRILLED at how Read to Self has been going in my room.  I've yet to introduce anything but Read to Self, but I'm planning on introducing a second daily this coming week...I'm hoping for more of the same success!

Thus far, our class has discussed why it's important to be a strong reader. We've discussed building our reading stamina, making ourselves strong readers and trying to get better every day! We graph our stamina every day, and on last Thursday, we made it all the way to 15 minutes! You should have heard the students cheer when we filled in that graph! :)

This graph is from Wednesday.  Sadly it doesn't have our 15 minutes on Thursday.


We also have started choosing good places to read in our classroom, remembering to sit where we won't talk and find a comfortable place to read the whole time. They are doing a fabulous job building their stamina and making great choices on finding a good spot to read! I am excited to see how we continue to grow as readers!

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But I will say I am a bit nervous about the Daily 5 despite my success up to this point.  My teammates all are doing "traditional" literacy stations and seat work.  I am determined to do the Daily 5 but I'm struggling with how to fit in our "seat work" which is usually handwriting pages and sight word sheets.  I also am having a hard time fitting "theme" stuff in to the schedule.  So if anyone has any advice on how to make it all work together, I would appreciate the tips!


7 comments:

  1. Love your smilebox reading slideshow.....cute idea
    Sue
    http://theverybusykindergarten.blogspot.com/

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  2. Keep up the good work on your blog....I just gave you an award...I Heart Your Blog.
    :) Sue
    http://theverybusykindergarten.blogspot.com/

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  3. I didn't even see this post before posting mine yesterday. I get ya, 200 percent!!! It's really hard to try new things when those around you are sticking with what works for them (trust me, I can appreciate sticking with what works - I'm trying Daily 5 for the first time this year). Do you have to fit in the worksheets during D5 or can you squeeze them in another time of day? Maybe you could use the sight word worksheets during Working With Words and leave the handwriting one for another time?

    Good luck - sounds like you're doing great, and I love, love, love the graph too!!!!!

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  4. Hello! I just got my first teaching job in K! I am soo excited and am going to use Daily Five in my classroom. Wondering if you have a lesson plan of how you introduce it (I have read the book but am curious if it should be tweaked for K). Also what do you put in their book boxes/bags at the beginning of the year?

    Thanks so much please email me, I would love to use you as a resource!!!

    ashleyaevans@hotmail.com

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  5. Hi Ashley! Congrats on your first job in K, it's so great! I honestly didn't tweak the introduction of daily 5 very much. I did it the way the book suggests, just maybe in shorter sessions since they have trouble sitting still for too long. We talked about why we should practice reading and what it looks like when we are doing "real reading" and not "fake reading." We talked about 3 ways to read what stamina is. I was afraid of using that language but really they were great with it. After we talked about all of it we modeled like crazy and then we started practicing!
    As for what goes in their book boxes, I start with a random selection of readers in our curriculum. I use level A mostly and an assortment of fiction/non-fiction. I started them with about 7 books I think. I waited until after my first assessment of their reading level to change out any books.
    I hope this helps! I would be happy to share any other info that you may need :) Good luck!

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  6. I nominated you for a Liebster award!
    http://krissyskindergarten.blogspot.com/

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