Guided Reading and Daily 5

Aloha everyone.  Last week I posted about my observation and how well it went mainly because of my Daily 5 routine in my classroom.  If you have followed me for awhile then you know how much I love the Daily 5 model.  I had a few questions about my routines so I thought I would do a more thorough post for you today.

The Daily 5 model in my classroom is pretty typical of what the authors of the book suggest.

You can visit their awesome website The Daily Cafe for lots of great tips and suggestions.

Lets start with my rotations.  Each Tuesday we begin our rotations.  I pass out a weekly checklist for my students to keep track of their rotations.

They must complete all 5 areas before they can repeat the same activity. 

Each rotation lasts for 20 minutes and students must stay in that area until I give the signal for the next rotation.

All students have a personal book bag with their number on it.  When they go to Read to Self they just grab their bag and start reading.  They each have 10 books in their bags.  Each students is allowed to exchange their books once a week.  I have a schedule to make it easy for them and myself.

For Listen to Reading I have 4 white bags that have a CD player, headphones and 6 different books with a CD.  The students can grab a bag and sit anywhere in the room.

They can also choose an iPad and listen to stories on there.  I have the Storia App from Scholastic and I also have some free ebooks that I have downloaded from different places such as Amazon and Kindle.

Students choose a buddy to read with and then they choose a Buddy Reading Bucket.  I have 4 buckets filled with pairs of books from the school library and my classroom.  They find a quiet spot and read

together.

For word work I have a variety of activities for my students to choose from.  I have 3 tubs with spelling work, sight words and skills sheets.  I also have monthly activities for them to choose from as well.  I do not require my students to do one before the other, but they must choose an activity and complete it.

My students have lots of options for writing during this time.  I don't have a lot of space for this area so I have set it up for them to have access to a variety of items.

I bought this writing center from A Cupcake For The Teacher, but don't have wall space.  So I set up two binders with everything in it.

The kids can easily get a binder and take it back to their seat.  They can also choose to write in our message books.  These came from Lori over at Teaching with Love and Laughter.

I read through a few the other day and some of my students are writing back and forth to each other.  It is so cute!

I also have TONS of different writing templates and paper.  They love to write on a variety of paper instead of just their journals.  I am pretty loose when it comes to work on writing since we have more formal writing during other times.

Students keep track of where they are going with their clip.  I choose one student to take off the clips after each rotation and pass them out.  The rest of the students are marking their charts and I am getting ready to meet with the next group.  I keep the clips in a simple plastic bucket.

This year I am co-teaching with our Sped teacher so she is in the classroom with me during my Daily 5 rotations.  Now that we are rolling we are able to meet with smaller groups and able to read with each child every day.  Here is my schedule.

I have a binder with my schedule and the different groups that I meet with.  I simply write the book and skills that I plan to work on with each group.  I have 5 different groups, but the Sped teacher meets with two groups during this time. We have a one hour block to meet with everyone.

Inside I keep their rotation charts activity sheets and the list of students in each group.  My groups change all the time depending on their needs.

For my groups I tend to use A-Z readers most weeks.  It is so easy to differentiate and they have great activities to go with each book.  I do however use our basal readers and books from my personal library.

I have a little basket on hand with basic supplies for each group.

Whisper phones, reading fingers, sticky notes, and lots of pencils!

I love these bookmarks that I ordered from Really Good Stuff.  They are simple reminders for my  students and we use them quite a bit.

Each Friday I wrap up our weekly rotations with an assessment.  It is usually 10 multiple choice and a written response.  We work hard on comprehension and skills and these weekly assessments help me to easily measure how each child is progressing.  I use the assessments that are provided with the A-Z program, our basal reader, or sometimes I have them take an AR quiz.

WellI think I have covered everything in my Guided Reading routine!  I hope this clarifies any questions that some of you may have had.  

What does your guided reading time look like?  Are you able to meet with all of your students daily?

I would love to have 30 minutes more in my daily routine!  Do you feel you have enough time to do it all?!   I always look forward to your comments.