Daily Five & F.A.C.E. of a Reader
In second grade students will be working on all aspects of literacy each day through a research-based program called The Daily Five. The idea is for them to develop independence and practice all of the language arts on a daily basis. We will start out slowly and practice building stamina in each of the areas while also giving me time to meet individually with the students and assess their reading level.
Assessing Reading Level
The Daily Five is a concept based on the idea that our students need to learn independence in their own literacy development. During the literacy block in the classroom, students need to work independently on skills while other students are involved in strategy groups with me.
The Daily Five are:
Additionally, each week, one literacy group will be the "News Team of the Week." They will write news stories about school, liturgical, sports, local, or national news. Their stories will also go through the whole writing process so that on Fridays, they can read their stories in front of a video camera to create our KCSS Channel 2 News broadcast!
F.A.C.E. of a Reader is the research-based structure of teaching reading strategies and assessing students. F.A.C.E. stands for:
Assessing Reading Level
- Individual conferences--I will begin the year by meeting with individual students to listen to them read, determining what strategies they need to help them become successful readers.
- Conferences will also provide information about students' reading habits.
- MAP test scores help to determine reading level. Testing throughout the year will provide additional checkpoints.
- MAP test scores will be used to determine students' Lexile scores, which will help me help them select good-fit books. The Lexile scores are being adapted to mesh with the new Common Core State Standards that most states are adopting. KCSS is also using these Common Core State Standards.
- MAP test scores also indicate strengths and weaknesses in various areas of reading, again helping determine what students need to work on.
- All of this information will help me put together reading strategy groups. These are not ability groups, but groups of students with similar needs. For instance, if several students need help with comprehension, we will have a group for that. If other children have difficulty reading fluently, we will have a group to practice that skill. These groups are not permanent, and students may move in and out of groups depending on their growth and other needs.
The Daily Five is a concept based on the idea that our students need to learn independence in their own literacy development. During the literacy block in the classroom, students need to work independently on skills while other students are involved in strategy groups with me.
The Daily Five are:
- Read to Self: in order to become better readers, students must have opportunities to read. Strategies are taught to students that help them choose "good-fit" books to enjoy reading by themselves. While reading, they will fill out a reading log and record interesting words that they come across.
- Read to a Partner: reading with someone helps readers and encourages self-sufficiency. Students learn about positioning their bodies for reading together and about discussing the contents of the reading by checking each other for understanding during the reading. Students can also practice fluency by modeling for their partner and/or trying to read with the same fluency or expression as their partner.
- Listen to Reading: listening to good models of reading helps students to improve their own reading and it provides the audio support for reading that some children may be lacking. Students will use the excellent online resource of Tumble Books to listen to quality literature while also viewing the text on the screen. During this station, students will write reviews, sharing their opinions about literature.
- Work on Writing: students need time to write about things that really matter to them. Each day they will write in their journals about a given prompt. They can then use these ideas to write a story at the writing station, taking it through the writing process, eventually being published for our classroom library. Students will also write using their weekly spelling words to give them a chance to use their spelling words in an authentic way.
Additionally, each week, one literacy group will be the "News Team of the Week." They will write news stories about school, liturgical, sports, local, or national news. Their stories will also go through the whole writing process so that on Fridays, they can read their stories in front of a video camera to create our KCSS Channel 2 News broadcast!
- Word Work: after our independent/strategy group time, we will come back together and share interesting words found in reading and put them on our Word Wall. We will also work on spelling words and patterns. Additionally, we will look for "Sparkle Words" in our reading. These are interesting synonyms for boring words. Students will be encouraged to use the "Sparkle Words" in their writing.
F.A.C.E. of a Reader is the research-based structure of teaching reading strategies and assessing students. F.A.C.E. stands for:
- Fluency,
- Accuracy,
- Comprehension,
- Expanding Vocabulary.