High-Stakes Test Prep

The objectives of Daily 5 and CAFE are for every student to be a thinker who loves reading and learning. Wide reading fosters that love and produces readers who think critically and comprehend deeply.

With Daily 5 and CAFE as the cornerstones of their classrooms, teachers can be confident that the best-practice instruction they have implemented will serve students well. As testing season approaches, teachers can reassure students that their work as readers and writers throughout the year will help them do their best.

Here is a look at how elements from Daily 5 and CAFE can prepare students to develop and demonstrate their literacy skills in test-taking situations as well as in everyday classroom settings.

Interactive Read-Aloud: A foundational piece of Daily 5 and CAFE is a deep appreciation for excellent children’s literature. Every day, teachers share beloved books and articles with enthusiasm and loving care. They help students build background knowledge, introduce learners to various genres, and enable them to experience how books work. They delineate differences between fiction and nonfiction and encourage readers to develop an appreciation for both. By reading the text fluently, they reinforce correct phrasing, proper intonation, and just the right speed. Guided by the CAFE Menu, they “read the text as the author would.” Oozing the charm of world-class entertainers, they entice students (even those who never smile except on the last day of school) to ooh and aah over the magic of a book. Effortlessly, they manage to captivate students with the musicality of poetry.

Over the course of the school year, teachers introduce students to a wide range of authors. They share books that make listeners laugh and sometimes cry. With discernment, they point out important words and concepts that students need to know to comprehend a text.

For some readers, the interactive read-aloud is their only opportunity to interact with grade-level text. But what an opportunity it offers! It eliminates the pressure of having to decode a text and replaces it with the sheer delight of listening to a story from a fluent reader and learning from a skilled writer.

During the reading, the teacher can provide students with a glimpse into the thought processes of an expert reader through a think-aloud. By offering frequent chances for partner talk, the teacher can invite children to respond to important questions and ponder ideas from the text. The skills that students build as they listen to an interactive read-aloud are many. That growth can translate to solid performances in class and on tests.

Stamina: Undoubtedly, every hard-earned minute of stamina built will benefit children in all of their academic endeavors, including test taking. When students learn that they have X number of minutes for a particular section of a standardized reading test, a lengthy passage and set of questions will be less likely to intimidate them. They can rely on their stamina to navigate test passages and read closely for meaning.

Read to Self: In a Daily 5 classroom, students have the gift of time to read. During Read to Self, they know how to choose a successful spot where they are comfortable reading. As they engage with a variety of self-selected texts, they grow in their confidence and ability to comprehend. They put into practice the strategies that they have been taught in brief focus lessons, small groups, and individual conferring. Their ability to concentrate and read a text closely will serve them well in their regular work as well as in a testing environment.

Work on Writing: During Daily 5, Work on Writing gives students a chance to think critically, organize their ideas, and express their thoughts. It gives them the freedom to explore many different types of writing and gain confidence with each. The act of writing encourages them to choose the most precise words and communicate clearly. These experiences will be an asset to children, whether they have choice of topic or must write on demand.

Word Work: As students do Word Work, they make significant observations and discoveries. They learn about individual letters, manipulate word parts, locate base words, identify prefixes and suffixes, and join words to make compounds. Heightening awareness of the building blocks of language and focusing attention on different aspects of words, Word Work strengthens the decoding skills readers need in testing situations.

Read to Someone: When students participate in Read to Someone, they work on several important skills. As they work together, they practice fluency, think about their reading, tell about what they have read, and check for understanding. Although partner reading is not usually a part of standardized test taking, the task strengthens students’ skills so that they can perform better when reading independently. Reading to Someone bolsters their confidence and enhances their perceptions of themselves as competent readers.

Listen to Reading: Some standardized tests now include opportunities for students to interact with different kinds of digital media; for example, test takers may be asked to watch and listen to a video clip in addition to reading a text. The skills and stamina that they have developed through their Daily 5 Listen to Reading work will help them maintain attention. Even if a test does not include this type of exercise, students who have mastered the art of listening closely have heightened their ability to focus and attend. By listening to a text, children also encounter new vocabulary and are freed from the task of decoding difficult words. Instead they are able to devote their attention to the meaning of the text and the author’s message.

CAFE Menu: With its emphasis on the goals of comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and expanding vocabulary, the CAFE Menu supports students in their growth as readers. Teachers need look no further than the CAFE Menu board to name the goals that the students in their learning community have claimed as their own. With pride, they can point to the strategies that they have explained and encouraged students to practice during brief focus lessons. Students demonstrate their work with the target strategies in reading conferences, strategy groups, and even whole-class lessons.

Goal Setting: As learners participate in the process of goal setting, they identify an area of challenge and work to strengthen it. As needed, they work through the strategies and skills described in each category of the CAFE Menu. This focused approach enables students to grow as readers, successfully tackling complex texts.

Strategy Groups: Strategy groups offer a targeted workout for readers who share a similar challenge. Students in strategy groups have the same need, but are not necessarily at the same reading level. Group members are not required to use the same text for strategy work; each student can use a good-fit book for strategy practice. They experience the advantage of learning the exact strategy that they need to become a better reader. Designed for flexibility, strategy groups allow students easy entrance and exit. As they master the targeted strategy, they can enter a new group to enhance their understanding of another strategy. If no group exists for the strategy they need to master, they can work on their area of reading need in an individualized reading conference.

Conferring: Through the wonderful conversations that occur during conferring, children gain familiarity with the language they are likely to encounter in the classroom and on standardized tests. As readers discuss and explore literary elements such as character, setting, plot, and conflict, along with text features such as table of contents, glossary, and index, they gain confidence with the type of vocabulary that appears on many different kinds of assessments. In addition, conferring encourages learners to explain their thinking about the text and cite evidence as they discuss their reading. During a conference, the teacher can reinforce the significance of revisiting the text to find answers to text-dependent questions and look for evidence to prove their answers. The habits of mind that learners develop through their independent reading, strategy group work, and conferring will benefit them as they respond to probing questions about the text on standardized tests.

Formative Assessment: Through formative assessment, students demonstrate their strengths and areas of challenge. Teachers can use data gleaned from formative assessments to inform their instruction. They can determine which students have mastered the targeted skill and deliver focused attention to those who need additional practice. Teachers can create their own formative assessments or use Assessing Each Strategy to ascertain the learner’s use of a particular strategy. A system of strong formative assessment paves the way for children to cement their learning and do well on summative assessments.

Home-School Connection: In communications with parents, teachers regularly extol the benefits of at-home reading. If teachers share Parent Pipelines with families who implement those literacy learning activities in their households, children are even better prepared to demonstrate their growth as readers.

Pensieve: Aided by a well-organized reading notebook known as the Pensieve, complete with its conferring forms and Touch Points, teachers can recall the strategy work that students performed to achieve their goals. They can revisit records of students’ reading conferences, examine the Touch Points that they recorded to denote student progress, and delight in the growth they have made. Every time they share their notes with students, they can use the occasion to offer both guidance and encouragement.

As teachers implement best-practice literacy instruction based on the underlying principles of Daily 5 and CAFE, they can be assured that their students have the tools necessary to be successful in the classroom and on high-stakes tests.

Works Cited

Behne, A. (n.d.) “Parent pipelines.” The Daily CAFE. Retrieved January 1, 2015, from /cafe-strategy-resources/parent-pipelines

Boushey, G., & Moser, J. (2014). The Daily 5 (2nd ed.). Portland, ME: Stenhouse.    

Boushey, G., & Moser, J. (2009). The CAFE book. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Gebhardt, H. (n.d.) Assessing each strategy. The Daily CAFE. Retrieved January 1, 2015, from /cafe-strategy-resources/assessing-each-strategy