Daily 5: Chapter 5 Launching Read to Self

Welcome back to our Daily 5 book study! 

I'm super late on this post. I was in Vegas and did not have the time I thought I would to finish this post. I take forever to write each post and I should have known that I couldn't finish this in Vegas. So I'm so sorry for my delay! Better late than never right? This chapter is all about launching Read to Self. Doing a thorough job of introducing these foundation lessons will pay off throughout the entire year. I love it because the habits that our students pick up during these first few weeks benefit more than Daily 5. It sets the tone for all opportunities to do quiet reading throughout the day.

There are 3 foundation lessons for Read to Self: 

1. The Three Ways to Read a Book

2. I PICK Good-Fit Books

3. Choose a Successful Spot

The book goes into a lot more detail, so I recommend getting this book and reading it thoroughly. It will really help! Here is the much shorter version:

Like I said, these lessons are so important. I start steps one and two on the first day of school. Don't skimp on modeling these three ways to read a book. Take the time to model, discuss and practice, but keep each lesson to about 10 minutes. 

I made this little poster to share with you all:

You can click on the picture to download.

Here is just a fun little video to illustrate how everyone can Read the Pictures. This is my 3 year old. He looooves being read to and also loves to "read" to us. :) There are three different videos playing at the same time. My favorite is the Hungry Caterpillar. You can hear that one the loudest because he is really using his expression!

Learning how to pick a "good-fit" book is tough. I love their famous lesson about the shoes to help teach this. That lesson is perfect for an introduction, especially for teaching purpose and interest when reading the pictures and retelling a story. 

Teaching students to find a good-fit book when reading the words is the trickiest because you need to look at all 5 parts of I PICK. One thing that I thought was interesting is that The Sisters did not recommend the five finger test because beginning books have very few words on the page. This makes so much sense. They recommend teaching students that they need to be able to read most of the words on the page in order to be a good fit. This got me thinking because often kids at the beginning of the year think they can't read. If they saw a page from a phonetic book even, they might think they don't know any words, when really they could read all the words with some effort. I know my son looks at a book and immediately says he doesn't know any words. I always emphasized in the first couple weeks (before assessments were done,) that they could enjoy reading the pictures and retelling. I spent time the first day to show them the bin of all phonetic books, sight word readers, and level A-D books. I know many, many readers in first grade are beyond that, but the majority that I usually got were around that level. I took some time to introduce these bins of books and point out the differences and that these might be just right books for you. For the more proficient readers, I said that if you can read these words without sounding out and you know them right away, these are not just right. I explained to my students that we will become better readers in first grade, but if we are just starting to learn to read, it's best to find books that are just right for us when we are reading the words. I show them examples of books with fewer words on the page and a book with lots of words. I ask them which book looks like a book that is just right for someone is learning to read. Throughout the first week, we spend lots of time looking at books in the library to help learn about what is a good fit. I also make sure to emphasize that when reading the pictures or retelling a story, they don't have to be able to read the words, so I take away the K in my I PICK poster to show this. 

You might want to consider a subscription to National Geographic Little Kids. When I taught first grade, I almost got National Geographic Kids, thinking that was the correct magazine for this age group. Then I started getting the Little Kid version for my son and he loves it! Plus he can actually read more of it. He mostly looks at the pictures when he has the Kids version because there are too many words for him. The Little Kid version says it's for 3-6, but I really feel that they are perfect for k-1. Here's a little video to show you inside this magazine:

You can download my I PICK poster parts by clicking on the picture below. For this poster, I used velcro so I could attach each strip as I introduced it. That way I could split up the lesson if I needed to. Also, if I wanted to reteach one of them, I could detach it to focus on it, then return it to the poster where it belongs to show that all of these are needed when we are reading the words. 

Last, but certainly not least, is learning how to find a successful spot. I use those exact words too. "Is that a successful spot?" I found myself saying a lot. We talk about what makes a spot successful. I even have those "hot spots" in my room that everyone seems to want to sit in. Before this lesson, look around your classroom for potential spots that your students may be temped to sit in that would not be safe or successful. Remind students their purpose for reading and how important it is to find that good spot so they can really read. Before choosing spots, I pointed out some good spots that would be successful.

Of course a huge part of launching Read to Self is building stamina. I've already talked a lot about that in chapter 3. If you missed it, make sure and go back so you can snag my stamina graph.

Make sure you visit my friend over at Luckyfrog's Lilypad who is hosting this chapter. There, you will find links to other wonderful bloggers to see what they are saying about Daily 5.