Using the CAFE and Daily Five program

Literacyin my classroom

Focus is on introducing a new CAFÉ strategy and/or revising previously taught strategies.

I use online stories on the Interactive Whiteboard (using resources such as Oxford Owl) or Big Books, to model the strategy.

Whole Class CAFE - 15 minutes

Students read ‘Just Right Books’ that they have selected from the Classroom Library. During Reading Conferences I monitor students’ book choices.

During this time I hold Reading Strategy Groups. The focus for these groups has been determined during the previous week’s Guided Reading sessions. During these Strategy Groups students are introduced to their new reading goal, and are explicitly taught the strategy that they need to work on, and given the opportunity to practise it. They write their goals on the classroom display and are given a bookmark with their reading goal on it.

Strategy groups are short and sharp – no longer than 10 minutes.

Read to Self - 15 minutes

STRATEGY GROUPS

Activities include: VCOP tasks (focusing on a particular area within Vocabulary,

Connectives, Openers & Punctuation) Spelling investigations Word Work Comprehension activities. Every second week these are focused on

Guided Reading texts. Listen to Reading (using netbooks or MP3 player) Handwriting. Activities designed to practise reading strategies taught in CAFÉ time.

Activities are diff erentiated to cater for the abil ity levels and needs of individual students.

During this time I hold Guided Reading sessions. I work with each student to identify a reading goal. These are documented and used to group students according to common areas of need. These groups form the focus for reading strategy groups in the following week.

Daily Five Rotations - 20 minutes

DAILY FIVE ROTATIONS

Structure:Whole Class Introduction, involving an experience to

engage and ‘tune in’ the students, and to connect with prior knowledge.

Shared/modelled writing with whole class. Individual writing for approximately 25 minutes

Interactive Writing groups held regularly with low/reluctant writers, and other groups as required.

Writing conferences are used to determine individual writing goals, and writing strategy groups are held to explicitly teach strategies and practice working on goals.

Whole Class share time to reflect on and consolidate learning, as well as celebrate working towards and achieving writing goals.

Work on Writing - 50 minutes

Positive Minus Interesting• Student learning is goal-

oriented.• All tasks are

differentiated according to ability levels and student needs.

• Reading strategies are explicitly taught, and students are able to articulate their goals, and what strategies they are working on.

• The program helps to develop student independence, stamina and motivation.

• Students work in both similar-ability and mixed-ability groupings.

• Can be tricky to fit it all in each morning

• I haven’t yet integrated Writing tasks into the Daily Five program, rather keep the ‘Work on Writing’ task relatively separate to the rest of the session. I would like to try to integrate this some more.

• I would like to adapt my structure to cater for more student choice and ownership over the Daily Five activities.

• Reading goal bookmarks help ensure students always know their reading goal and are reminded of it each time they read.

Reflection