The Daily 5

I'm dedicating the month of June to reading Professional Literature and going to LOTS of Workshops to get a base of how I want to run my classroom. In July, I'll start writing my lesson plans for the semester (since I already cleaned my room for the most part and arranged it the way I wanted the last 3 weeks of school!).  I just finished the book The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades by the Sisters, and it was awesome!!! I definitely am going to implement this structure in my classroom next year.
My reflections on the book:

• Easy to read and follow
• Gives EXPLICIT instruction on how to implement, although reading the exact words of the teacher gets redundant, however, it's necessary!
• Is achievable ONLY IF you are committed to it.
• LOVE the Daily 5 components: Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Word Work, Work on Writing
• LOVE the table in the appendix which breaks down the first 5 weeks of implementing the Daily 5.
• When placing students around the room, what are the other students doing?
• When letting each child tell you what s/he wants to do first, how is bad behavior avoided?
• Do I HAVE to do all 5? I'm thinking three 20 minute sessions? Does that ruin the whole thing?
• Students choose where to sit in room, who to work with, when they want to do each component.
• I REALLY enjoy whole group teaching and grand discussions, still doable in the whole group time in between each session?

Some of the questions I'll think about as the summer moves on. Overall I really enjoyed the book and learned a WHOLE BUNCH of new information and management ideas I didn't know before!

Next book on the list,  Making the Most of Small Groups: Differentiation for All by Debbie Diller. After reflecting, I decided small groups and stations is where I need to gain more expertise! So here goes!