The Daily 5 -- Part 2

I finished The Daily 5 book yesterday.  Their “Read to Someone and Listen to Reading” chapter contained tips on partnering up with another young person to read.  The sisters suggest that the more experienced reader count to three before offering help and then asking the less experienced reader if they would like “coaching or time.”  At first I thought many tips in the chapter do not apply to a homeschool environment but it really depends on how many children are in the family.  I know my boys can use the “coaching or time” lesson and ways to encourage each other with reading.  Overall, this part of The Daily 5 (read to someone and listen to reading) will be the easiest for us because we already read together on a daily basis and listen to audio books in the van.  However, the tips and lessons in the book will likely help us avoid competition between the boys.

The writing chapter has a helpful tip to have the children underline words they don’t know (to fix later) which is a better than invented spelling in my opinion.  I like their ideas for word work on a string board.  The sisters did not indicate a preferred teaching method so Charlotte Mason’s methods, such as copywork, can be used with The Daily 5.   For our visual spatial child, we have a photo sticker book that he can use to make hand-written flashcards.  He can use the string board or sand on a cookie sheet for writing words too.  

For creative writing, I want to find a balance between Charlotte Mason’s assertion “never let children see a word spelled incorrectly” and Invented Spelling “it doesn’t matter how you spell the word, you’ll learn the correct way later.”  Hunter can dictate his stories to me like we do for the Language Experience Approach until he is ready for writing on his own.

I will use the techniques in the book. I like their charts in the book too.  I feel a lot better knowing more about what is typically done in public school, what does not work, and what can work.  Their “How We Have Evolved” chart shows what they did when they were first teaching, the middle growth and the final evolution of their method.  Since their method looks a lot like homeschooling times 25 kids, I feel pretty good about homeschooling and my ability to teach my children to read and write.

It’s a nice feeling to start the school year.  I’ll post again in a few weeks with how The Daily 5 is working for us.

Please note: I changed the first paragraph since this post first published.

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