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Making Learning Visible (and Less Intimidating)

Back at the beginning of the school year, I was helping a teacher set up her classroom. As we were arranging bulletin boards and supplies, she pointed to one board she had set aside. “I’m not sure what I’m going to put here yet,” she said, “but I want it focused on literacy.”

I smiled and suggested, “You know, it’s always helpful to make learning visual. You could write the strategies students are learning on sentence strips and add them to the literacy board. That way, students can see all the strategies they’ve worked on during the year.”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s a great idea!” she said.

As we continued setting up, I mentioned that as the list of strategies grew, she could group them by type—vocabulary strategies together, phonics strategies together, comprehension strategies together. Again, she thought it was a wonderful idea.

Then I added, “Once you have enough, you might even organize them under headings like CAFE—for comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and expanded vocabulary.”

She paused, a little perplexed. “Oh . . . is that what the CAFE Menu is?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s not a prescribed list. It might have seemed confusing because we were talking about where strategies could go on a menu, but the CAFE Menu is really just a concept map. It’s a way to organize students’ thinking and learning, not a curriculum you have to follow word for word.”

I could see the relief in her expression. “Oh . . . that makes sense,” she said. “I think I can start by just posting some strategies and then organize them later as I get more.”

That’s the beauty of the CAFE Menu—it grows with the students and with the teacher’s understanding. Start small. Make learning visible. Let the students see themselves in the strategies and watch them take ownership.

And if you look for the CAFE Menu on our website, you’ll notice that what you find there are empty menus—ready to be populated with the strategies your students are learning. What about all the strategies and resources we’ve shared over the years? They’re still there! They’ve simply moved under the heading “Literacy Strategies.” There, you can search for the strategies you teach and find resources to help you support your students.

Sometimes, as teachers, we overcomplicate things in our heads. We worry about getting it “perfect” or following the “rules” of a program. But teaching is flexible, messy, and wonderfully human. The best learning often happens when we start with something simple, let it grow organically, and give ourselves permission to figure out the details as we go.

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