Benchmark Advance, Daily 5, and CAFE

Benchmark Advance (2022)

Benchmark Advance 2022 is a comprehensive standards-based literacy program. It provides a cohesive framework for the development of literary skills and content knowledge, supporting high achievement for every student. The program received an all-green rating on EdReports, a Best of 2022 Tech and Learning Award, and an Excellence in Equity Award for its texts.

The program builds strong foundations through explicit, systematic, spiraled instruction that is linked to contextualized practice, where learning is set. With a solid foundation, students develop comprehension and critical thinking skills as they encounter grade-level complex texts – through their write-in consumable magazines in grades 2-5.

Write-in Student Books:

Yes, your students can write in their books! Often called their “magazines,” students receive one for each unit. Each one is a collection of engaging texts organized around a single topic. Students can write inside them as they annotate the text and take notes. This not only supports reading comprehension, but also makes them very engaging!

Ask your student to share their annotations and thoughts with you!

Home Activity Calendars:

Not only can students write in the books, they can also keep them as their very own. After approximately 21 days, the book comes home with each student. Look on the back cover of the books. These are activities that will help you continue the learning at home.

Engaging Conversations at Home:

Benchmark Advance has an aligned program framework across Grades K-6. This means that all elementary students are learning about the same knowledge area at the same time. If you have siblings in elementary school together, they will be learning about related content. Family conversations about school can build on one another.

Home Connection Letters:

The program resources include take-home letters. These come home with the student every three weeks and tell you about the topic and instructional goals for the unit. It will also include activities you can do at home to support the learning in the classroom.

Daily 5:

I know that each year in your child’s schooling presents new expectations and routines for you and your child to become familiar with. My goal is to introduce classroom routines and structures in a way that removes all the guesswork from the children and allows them to concentrate fully on learning. In reading, the classroom structure I use is called “The Daily Five.” The purpose of this letter is to explain what The Daily Five is and what you should expect to see/hear at home.

The Daily Five is a literacy structure that teaches independence and gives children the skills needed to create a lifetime love of reading and writing. It consists of five tasks that are introduced individually. When introduced to each task, the children discuss what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to engage in the task independently. We will spend our first few weeks working intensely on building our reading and writing stamina, learning the behaviors of The Daily 5 and fostering our classroom community.

The Five Tasks Include:

Read to Self
Read to Someone
Listen to Reading
Work on Writing
Word Work

When all five tasks have been introduced and the children are fully engaged in reading and writing activities, I am able to work with small groups and confer with children one on one. This structure is effective, the results are amazing, and the children really look forward to Daily Five time. Ask your child about The Daily Five and see what he/she has to say. I anticipate the class will tell you about the class stamina, how we are working towards independence, and maybe you will even hear about some of the fantastic things your child has read, written or listened to during our structured reading time.

CAFE:

Research shows that good readers use a variety of strategies when successfully reading and comprehending a selection of text. I feel it is not only important to teach these strategies but to post them as a reference for readers in the classroom.

Our classroom has a Literacy CAFE Menu posted that contains strategies good readers use when reading. In class, we will be comparing our Literacy CAFE Menu to a menu at a restaurant. We will discuss how the food we order at a restaurant depends on the time of day, how hungry we are, and what we like to eat. This compares to our classroom CAFE menu because as readers we use the strategies we need (at that time) to help us successfully read and comprehend text.

CAFE is an acronym that stands for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding vocabulary. These become our goals and the strategies we use to be successful. Each child will have goals and strategies specific to his/her individual needs and therefore will receive specific instruction needed to move forward and become a successful reader.