Students are just about to transition to Daily 5 in Joan's class.

Jessica Hewitt a wonderful first grade teacher in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, asked herself this question and then answered it.

Here is what she had to say.

"The Daily 5 calls for a ton of transitions and my students just couldn't handle them, they were really bumpy. We were loosing so much instructional time, so I decided to back up and explicitly teach behaviors of independence for transitions.

I am working on my master's degree in elementary education and I decided to use the Daily 5 methodology to "teach transitions" to my students as part of the thesis project. I set up a week's worth of lessons where we created a chart, modeled, practiced, and discussed transitions during the Daily 5 using the 10 Steps to Teaching Independence.

We also chart our transition times everyday. Our transitions have decreased from 18min. to 5 min. It is absolutely spectacular.

I was able to use the methodology that you so clearly laid out in your book to help my students where they they needed it the most! Not to mention the great thesis project I got out of it!!!"

Thanks for sharing, Jessica. We love hearing about the ways teachers all over the country use the 10 steps to bring peace and order to their daily school lives.