The Daily Five is based on the premise that students choose between five literacy activities while you are working with small groups and conferencing with students. Student choice plays a major role in student motivation. It can also play a major role in student discipline. Unfortunately, my students were not able to handle the Daily Five choices that were given to them. Most of them choose read to self or buddy reading because they didn't want to work on writing on word work (spelling). Listen to reading was a favorite but it was too hard to manage without a consistent rotation. In fact, due to the intervention pull out program that we have in place on our campus, it was really hard for me to manage the Daily Five and small guided reading groups at all. So I choose to use a more structured Daily Five rotation.
The rotation schedule that I use is based on three rotations, five days per week. No two groups work on the same activity at the same time. I use icons on a pocket chart to show the students their rotations for the day. This makes it easy for them to see, but also easy for me to know exactly what any particular child should be doing at any time during the rotations. The pocket chart is organized by color group and the students work with their small group throughout all three rotations for the day. (For more information on dividing students into small groups, see the Small Group page.)