It’s about time,
teachers, to describe more ways I use poetry in the classroom.
Poetry lends
itself to guided reading lessons so seamlessly. In my previous post, I referred to
using poetry to teach compound words. The
following poem is one I use for compound word study.
Depending on the
students, this poem can launch a study of compound words, or allow
them to review that concept. For first graders,
I begin by having the students identify words they believe to be compounds,
after explaining what compound words are. For older students, I might
challenge them to highlight all the compound words they can find. (Using a
pencil is a good idea in case they mistake a polysyllabic word for a compound.)
For young
learners, one of the most dramatic ways to explain compound words is to write
some on sentence strips and then cut them apart in front of them. Using a
pocket chart, you can “rejoin” and “separate” the words until the concept is
clear. This is also effective in showing them why some words may sound
like compound words, but actually are not.
Using an example
from the poem above, “middle” may seem like a compound word to emergent readers. However, when you cut it apart, it becomes clear that it is not,
in fact, 2 smaller words. A bit trickier is “carrot.” When cut in
two, it certainly appears that it is composed of car + rot. Understanding that
the compound word must represent the essence of its components can be
tricky. Carrot, however, is in no way representative of a rotting car.
In my next post,
I’ll describe skill lessons that poetry readily proffers.
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