This term, I have launched Reading CAFE with my class. It was new to them but not entirely new to me. I had a very successful year with CAFE in 2013/2014 at a different school, but the same year level. It is interesting launching it again and comparing my experiences. One of the benefits of the CAFE menu is that there is an interactive menu for member teachers on the website https://www.thedailycafe.com
To start with we read a text together as a whole class, with various students volunteering to read aloud certain pages. It was important that the text was unfamiliar and sufficiently challenging that most students would encounter some difficulty when reading. I made sure the text was displayed on the TV so everyone could read along. At the end of each read-aloud, section the students discussed which reading strategies the reader had used to move forward on challenging parts of the text. This is why it was important that the readers be volunteers, so that they could cope with being the subject of peer discussion. Also, often good readers internally process as they read, so not all strategies are obvious. We made sure to check in with each reader to see if our assumptions and assessments on the strategies they had used were correct. This way, through this whole class shared reading we built a list of already known reading strategies. I think this is important to do. To acknowledge up front that these 9 and 10 year olds were already good readers with a wealth of strategies at their disposal. Often the CAFE menu at this level is less about new strategies but strengthening and deepening existing strategies and supporting their transfer into other curricula areas.
To start with we read a text together as a whole class, with various students volunteering to read aloud certain pages. It was important that the text was unfamiliar and sufficiently challenging that most students would encounter some difficulty when reading. I made sure the text was displayed on the TV so everyone could read along. At the end of each read-aloud, section the students discussed which reading strategies the reader had used to move forward on challenging parts of the text. This is why it was important that the readers be volunteers, so that they could cope with being the subject of peer discussion. Also, often good readers internally process as they read, so not all strategies are obvious. We made sure to check in with each reader to see if our assumptions and assessments on the strategies they had used were correct. This way, through this whole class shared reading we built a list of already known reading strategies. I think this is important to do. To acknowledge up front that these 9 and 10 year olds were already good readers with a wealth of strategies at their disposal. Often the CAFE menu at this level is less about new strategies but strengthening and deepening existing strategies and supporting their transfer into other curricula areas.
We have a reading progression at our school, so before we launched our CAFE menu, I cross-checked it with the progression to ensure alignment. In most cases they are very similar, it seemed that the CAFE menu was the bones of a good reading programme, while the progression went into more detail adding the flesh. For classroom display purposes the simpler CAFE menu produces more succinct WALHTs, however the greater detail in the progression is more useful for planning.
PTC 1 - engage in ethical, respectful, positive and collaborative professional relationships with akonga.
PTC 6 - conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme
PTC 8 - demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn.
PTC 9 - select teaching approaches, resources, technologies and learning and assessment activities that are inclusive and
effective for diverse ākonga
- modify teaching approaches to address the needs of individuals and groups of ākonga
PTC 6 - conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme
PTC 8 - demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn.
PTC 9 - select teaching approaches, resources, technologies and learning and assessment activities that are inclusive and
effective for diverse ākonga
- modify teaching approaches to address the needs of individuals and groups of ākonga
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