Before Students Check In

You may have already experienced the sometimes audible frustration expressed by students when they have made their Daily 5 choice and then you pull them from it for small group or one-on-one instruction. We respect and appreciate that frustration and try hard not to interrupt the cadence of their independent time.

So what does that look like? Prior to having students check in with their Daily 5 choice, we let the class know who we plan on working with that round. If we are going to work with a small group, we let them know and pull them together right away.

This protocol keeps students from making their plan, checking in and then getting disrupted from their work time to join a small group for instruction. Once the small group is completed, the students will have ample time to go back out into Daily 5 with an assigned task or a Daily 5 choice.

If we are doing one-on-one instruction we have found the simple act of getting out of our chair and quietly going to each child for their conference makes a world of difference. If we have an appointment with a student to confer about a piece of writing and we see that when we are ready to conference they are reading to self, we merely wait until they are working on writing to hold the conference.