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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
OP here. I was very interested in reading this blog series, although no teachers I know use the Daily Five approach now. I kept waiting for Shanahan to clearly lay out what techniques he believes are most effective to reach the goals he sets forth. If a teacher posted this, could you let me know how you organize your literacy period according to Shanahan's goals?

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OP, I think many teachers are drawn to the Daily 5 because it gives them a way to manage student activity during what we used to call "seat work time".   When one group is having small group instruction with the teacher, the other 4 groups need to be working independently.   We used to do worksheets and workbooks, then learning centers; Daily 5 is just a different way of presenting activities for students to do independently that has the benefit of not being a center (requiring teacher prep time) and not being a worksheet (the horror!!)

Seems like Shanahan thinks you should focus on learning goals, not activities, even if the way you reach those learning goals involves using a program or a basal reader or workbook.   I'm the ESOL teacher who mentioned earlier two [rpgrams I found that work well -- this is basically how I organize my classes, so I agree with him, although I need to admit I do it on the down-low as no one in my school district wants to see someone just basically teacging from a workbook (no matter how effective it may be!!)

[quote]What are these goals? My reading of the research says that students need to learn words and word parts (to read them, to interpret them), they need to be able to read text fluently (with sufficient accuracy, speed, and prosody), they need to be able to understand and interpret the ideas in text, and they need to convey their own ideas through text (writing). These are all critically important goals, and each of them has many sub goals.

I would argue teachers should provide students with explicit instruction and lots of practice time in each of these four learning areas on a daily basis. Rather than focusing on four or five activities that kids should be engaged in everyday, I’d rather have teachers thinking about what activities they should encourage based on the learning goals in each of these areas. Thus, it would be very reasonable to spend 30 minutes on words, 30 minutes on fluency, 30 minutes on reading comprehension, and 30 minutes on writing everyday (on average)—even though the actual activities would vary.

A daily organizing plan that is focused on these outcomes makes greater sense than one based on activities such as read to self or read to someone.

And such a plan makes sense even when using “core reading programs” or “basal readers” because they help teachers to choose among the many options such programs provide.[/quote][/quote]

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