The CAFE Book - chapters 6 and 7

The whole class component described in chapter 6 was familiar to me, and it seemed pretty standard for the other ideas that I have heard about for reading and writing whole class mini-lessons. The main highlights were to make sure that they were brief but frequent. The authors also outline systematic steps for successful instruction with example lessons for different needs. Along with one on one instruction, whole class is one of the most important components to the framework.

The concept of strategy groups was one of my favorites from the whole book. I could really relate to their comments that it is better to group students by their strategy needs rather than their reading level because within levels students have diverse needs. I can clearly see this in my classroom, and I cannot wait to see the impact that it has on my students' growth. It is also easier to imagine flexible grouping with this strategy as opposed to guided reading groups by level.

I was also glad to see the following comment, “Many of our intermediate readers also participate in literature circles and book clubs in three- to four-week cycles" because as I read the earlier chapters I thought about how I would not want to give up this component in my classroom. It was nice to see that the authors have already blended the concepts together rather than setting it up as an either/or situation.

Before strategy grouping begins teachers take plenty of time to establish routines so that students not in the group can work independently without redirection. This concept and how to implement it remains to be the most helpful piece of information that I gathered from The Daily Five.

While strategy groups are a great idea for students with similar needs, the authors point out that not every student is in a strategy group. It is fully dependent on whether or not they need it at any given time or if the teacher is meeting the students' needs through whole class and one-on-one components.

As with other sections of the book, the authors give many thorough example lessons for strategy groups, making it easy to visualize how the various groupings work toward the same student goals.

The book gives an in-depth overview of the CAFE menu making it easy to visualize and imagine how all of the pieces come together. It give me a lot to consider this summer!