Assessing young readers involves more than determining a reading level and moving them onto the next. We developed the CAFÉ Menu to help students understand and master different strategies used by successful readers.

CAFÉ is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary, and the system includes goal-setting with students in individual conferences, posting of goals on a whole-class board, developing small group instruction based on clusters of students with similar goals, and targeting whole-class instruction based on emerging student needs and fine tuning one on one conferring.

This is the topic of our new book The Cafe Book.

To get started click on the links below or on the right hand side of the site locate The Literacy Cafe Menu. Click on The CAFÉ Menu under that category and voila, The CAFÉ Menu will appear. Next, Click on the Goals of Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expand Vocabulary, and even Behavior at the bottom. You'll be taken to all of the articles, templates and videos related to that goal. If you want this narrowed down by strategy, go back to The CAFE Menu.

Now, click on any strategy on the menu and you will arrive at a page listing all the related pages on our site to support that strategy. Notice the categories, Downloads, Articles, Videos, Books and Parent Pipeline. Click on any link and it will take you directly to the page to support that strategy.

As we add new articles, pages and videos each week, they will be added to these specific pages.