Essential question:
What am I finding as I share data?
Pre and Post results:  I’ll be doing my post-testing on Monday.  I’m excited to see how my little guys have done over the last three weeks. 

I’ve been surfing the web for ideas on methods for surveying children.  I have my survey ready but I’m not satisfied with it just yet.  I'm wishing that I could see some examples of surveys done with young children.  I'll be forging ahead next week regardless.

Observation:  My observations have been much the same this week.  The consistency of the results I believe illustrates the validity of the results.  I’m satisfied that I have a good read on the amount of engagement happening during our use of The Daily Five.

One trend that I noticed this week is that children love being able to choose what they are going to work on and when they are going to work.  The Daily Five program has children do each of five literacy activities in whatever order they want.  The option of choosing the activity order, has allowed me to see which activities are favorite with which students.  For example, I have noticed that two little ones just love to write and choose that activity first each time.  They are excited to do the writing and spend as much time as they can on it.  These children, who couldn’t write a sentence two months ago, are writing stories with three and four sentences, complete with illustrations.  I’m convinced that the joy they are getting from writing comes partly from having it be their choice.  I would not have noticed this if they were working under a more structured program.  It’s an advantage of giving children a bit more freedom.   I’m reminded that the difference between work and play is choice.  So it is for them.

Next steps:  I’ll finish my data collection by Monday, post-testing and surveys. Then I will full into the analysis and writing.  I’m excited to more to the next phase.



10/25/2013 03:18:31 pm

I've read the daily 5 can be used for any age elementary students. I don't know much about it. Can you use technology for this practice?

Reply
10/26/2013 09:36:39 am

Hi Barbra, You could use technology for parts of it. The Daily Five has five components: Work on Writing, Word Work, Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Listen to Reading. I think technology could be used for listening to reading by using iPads or computers with ereading materials. Kids could use word processing programs for the writing components and possibly the word work. Technology could be used for the management of it.
One of the most important aspects of The Daily Five though is its power to help the children be independent. With older children and decent equipment it could work. With little ones I don't think it can. I have been very frustrated with our tech equipment and finally refused to have it in our classroom because of the constant need for supervision and repair. It took up far more instructional time than we could afford.

Anyway, that's kind of a long answer for a "maybe". It could be great if all the stars aligned in the right orbit, which they seldom do!

Thanks for your comment.

Reply
10/27/2013 07:41:23 am

I also have the Daily Five and have only read through about a quarter of it. I liked the direction is going with the students independence. I do however need a visual of what that looks like for a class. I am a very visual learner so reading a book and just getting it is tough for me. for instance when they discuss learning to read for the entire silent reading time I have a hard time seeing what they mean by reseting. Do you just stop and go on to another activity then try it again? I Like the idea of not letting them practice silent reading poorly. I was a student that would just look at he book and buy my time during silent reading. I have subbed in classes that use this and I was amazed at how well the students seemed to be doing and how long they read independently. The classroom also had small group reading together can that be the read to someone and listen to reading altogether?

Reply



Leave a Reply.