3 Ways to Read a Book

One of the first lessons I will be teaching my students this fall is 3 Ways to Read a Book.

I use the Daily 5 format for a middle school exploratory that I call Reading Essentials. Reading Essentials is a reading intervention for our struggling readers in a Michigan middle school for grades 6 - 8.

The students are supplied with books and magazines in their interest areas when we begin. I've found that many of them gravitate toward the magazines. But as I observed them reading, many students were just flipping through the pages and glancing at the pictures.

I developed a lesson called 3 Ways to Read a Book. I use the lesson to emphasize how making meaning from the text is very important whether you are looking at pictures or reading words.

I offered the PowerPoint to my readers earlier but I have now revised and expanded it. I believe it is much improved.

If you are would like to use the PowerPoint, just send me an email. In return for the PowerPoint, I ask two things.

1. Share with me if you have been able to use Daily 5 or the Cafe Menu with middle school students. We can all learn from each other.

2. Give me suggestions how to improve the PowerPoint and how your students reacted to it.

We're all working together and I'd love to create a network of middle school teachers who are using the Daily 5 for this age group.

Brenda Benedict

mydaily5journey@gmail.com

Daily Five ™

I am new to the world of Daily Five but I can see how hard the Daily Five company works. They have a very effective distribution system to help teachers across the world access and use their material. I appreciation their great entrepreneurial spirit. That is why I contacted DailyCafe.com about using Daily Five in the title of my blog.

I received a warm response from them and learned that I must include a trademark symbol whenever I"m using the term Daily Five. So my blog title has now changed to include the trademark TM. However this blogging platform will not allow me to place the TM in the body of this blog.

The Two Sisters stated they would like to see my blog. It would be great to share my work with the greater Daily 5 world. But more importantly, I would like to hear from others using the Daily 5/Cafe Menu at the middle school level. Are you out there?

The Daily Five at Middle School

An unique opportunity came to me this fall. As a literacy coach, I typically work with teachers to increase their students' achievement. This work can take several forms such as consulting, researching or modeling lessons to their classes. But through a series of steps at one of my schools, I was given the opportunity to teach an intervention class-actually three intervention classes for a trimester in our middle school.

The teacher who had started working with our lowest readers was no longer able to continue her work here. So I spend time with her, observing how she designed an delivered reading interventions to these students.

She was using a hybrid form of The Cafe Menu which had been used at the elementary school where she spent most of her day.

The students were responding well to her work and I decided that I would build on her work.

But where to start? I started where most of us start now. I googled 'Daily Five in middle school". I followed up on every lead from Google and that is what I am going to share with you.

I also found that there were not many resources for middle-school specific information. That is why I am beginning this blog. I want to share my experiences with you. I also want to develop a network of educators who are using The Daily Five and the Cafe Menu at the secondary level.

Join me on my journey!

What is The Daily Five?

As a middle school teacher and literacy coach, I thought all the talk I have been hearing about the Daily 5 and the Cafe menu didn't apply to me. But when I was asked for advice from my principal as how to best meet the needs of our struggling readers, I came face to face with the Daily 5.

This has been a journey for me and continues to be a journey. This will be the record of that journey.

Please contact me with stories of your experiences with the Daily 5 especially at the middle school level. I want this blog to be a clearinghouse for information to help all of us.

Sincerely,
Brenda Benedict