USING POETRY in the CLASSROOM -- Pt. 4

It's about time, teachers, to explore more possibilities for using poetry in the classroom.  Today's focus is GRAMMAR.

One of the chief reasons I like to use poetry for grammar lessons is that the subject of the lesson is usually quite obvious in the poem.  For example, the following poem practically begs you to teach PUNCTUATION. 

How many punctuation marks you focus on depends entirely on the age and learning stage of your students.  You can see how easy it is to focus on a particular punctuation mark in this poem.  If you are lucky enough to have a smart board, this becomes an interactive lesson.  If, like me, you do not have that resource, you can copy the poem on chart paper and let the students interact with that copy.  Your grammar lesson can be as simple as identifying the punctuation marks, reviewing the role of these marks, or more in-depth instruction about the correct use of less common punctuation such as dashes and semi-colons.

A focus on punctuation in poetry also provides a wonderful opportunity to teach your students to “read the punctuation.”  Modeling the expression that punctuation invokes is an invaluable aid to teaching fluent reading.  In fact, reading poetry is the #1 way to improve fluency!  When you model reading the punctuation, overemphasize the changes in pace, voice, breath, etc.  By teaching your students to "read the punctuation," you will be enhancing comprehension, too!

Poetry can also be used to study PARTS OF SPEECH.  The following poem is one I like to use when studying verbs.  It has a nice variety of action words and I love to point out the verbs the poet chose to use in place of some “tired” ones.

A bonus with this poem is the extensive use of personification.  While you may not think a lesson on personification is appropriate for 1st graders, in order to truly understand the poem, your students will need to realize that the “I” in the poem is the March wind.  Obviously, for older students, personification is an appropriate lesson and is beautifully illustrated in this poem.

Virtually every poem has a grammar lesson hiding in it, just waiting to jump out at you.  All that’s required is to start looking at poems differently.  Try using fresh eyes to identify possible grammar lessons in this poem:

How did you do?  Here some teaching points I found:

1. The importance of using capital letters for months of the year; how hard would it be to understand this poem if it  didn’t have a capital M on the name of the month?

2. Homonyms could be studied, starting with merry/marry/Mary and/or I/eye/aye.

3. The vowel digraph /ay/ is plentiful in this poem.  You may want to make an anchor chart for this digraph.  Extend the learning by including other digraphs for the long a sound.

4. Review punctuation and “reading the punctuation.”  The hyphen may be new to your students.  This is a perfect vehicle for studying it.

5. Identify parts of speech: nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives…

Check back soon for more ideas about using poetry in the classroom. 

You can find more possibilities for teaching with poetry in --

Christmas Emergent Reader & Teaching Techniques

That means it's time for another holiday, emergent reader.  And here it is...

Green Tree, Green Tree, What Do You See? is perfect for the holiday season. The pictures not only support the text, but are inviting to color. Ask your students to color the pictures, noting the color words in bold print on each page. This will provide additional support for the emerging reader. 

When working with beginning readers, it is advisable to choose 1 strategy and focus on it until your students show mastery. While I will be covering several topics, you should choose the one that best fits the needs of your students at the time. One of the most valuable lessons I learned in Reading Recovery™ was to avoid the shotgun approach. 

High Frequency Word Practice

This Christmas reader emphasizes color words and 14 high frequency words. Some of the HFW may be unknown or partially known. Select 1 word to accentuate as you conduct the book walk. Ask your student to point to that word on each page as you explain the story to him. In this example, the chosen HFW is what.

If the word is troublesome on the first read, provide the initial sound whenever the word is encountered. Resist the temptation to teach ALL or several HFW at the same time.  

Picture Cues

Words such as reindeer and stocking are not HFW, nor should you expect your young learners to know such words in print. The illustrations provide support for these unfamiliar nouns. If a student balks when he comes to these words, remind him to check the picture for a clue. 

Or, upon turning to a page with a problematic noun, simply point to the picture cue. 

The last sentence on each page presents a noun that does not have picture support.  Either supply the initial sound or simply tell your student what the word is if he stumbles or hesitates.

1 – 1  Correspondence / Self-Checking

The print is large enough to allow easy pointing to the words as the children read aloud.  If your students no longer need to point, require them to point on a few chosen pages.  This practice leads the children to self-checking.  After reading a selected page, whether correctly or incorrectly, ask the child to read it again while pointing to each word as she reads.  Upon finishing that reading, ask her if she had enough words, i.e. was there 1 word for every time she pointed?  If the pointing did not match, help her reread with correct pointing.  It is important to ask her to check her 1 – 1 correspondence when she is correct at least as often as when her pointing did not match.  Otherwise, YOU are the one who has learned to self-check.

While the text is highly predictable, there are enough exceptions to require your students to truly attend to it.   It is not unusual, however, for polysyllabic words to be problematic.  For example, snowman or reindeer may entice your student to double point or get lost in the pointing if she moved on to the next word, but realizes it does not match what she is saying.  This is the perfect opportunity to explain that some words have 2 or more beats but still get just one finger point.  Again, ask your child to check the accuracy of her pointing both when she is correct and incorrect.

Inflections

Several of the HFW have inflections in this text. If your student is ready for this skill, draw his attention to the word by repeating what the student said. You may wish to leave your finger on the inflected word as you ask him if what he read sound right.

You are leading the child to reflect upon whether his reading sounds like standard English. If the inflection was incorrectly read or skipped, use finger masking to help him focus on and recognize it. It is important to ask the child to assess the accuracy of his reading both when he is correct and incorrect.

Punctuation and Fluency

The lilt of the story encourages fluent reading.  However, this book provides ample opportunities for learning to “read the punctuation.”  The frequency of commas, question marks, and periods make them obvious choices for “reading the punctuation.”  Resist the temptation to “read” all of the punctuation.  Choose 1 type to focus on with this book.  Introduce the other punctuation with subsequent texts.  If, for instance, you decide to work on question marks, model reading the sentence and punctuation correctly.  Emphasize the change in pitch that the question mark requires.  Then call for the student to use the same pitch whenever she encounters a question mark.  

If she reads past the punctuation, point to the question mark, leaving your finger there until she rereads and “reads” the punctuation. Learning to “read the punctuation” is crucial to comprehension and fluency.

Since this book is intended for the children to keep, be sure to send it home prior to the winter break. Encourage them to read it to everyone at their home.

[This is a revised version of this reader. If you have purchased it in the past, you can download the new file for FREE!]

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USING POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM – Part 4 -- GRAMMAR

It's about time, teachers, to explore more possibilities for using poetry in the classroom. One of the chief reasons I like to use poetry for grammar lessons is that the subject of the lesson is usually quite obvious in the poem.  For example, the following poem practically begs you to teach punctuation. 

How many punctuation marks you focus on depends entirely on the age and learning stage of your students.  You can see how easy it is to focus on a particular punctuation mark in this poem.  If you are lucky enough to have a smart board, this becomes an interactive lesson.  If, like me, you do not have that resource, you can copy the poem on chart paper and let the students interact with that copy. 

A focus on punctuation in poetry also provides a wonderful opportunity to teach your students to “read the punctuation.”  Modeling the expression punctuation calls for is an invaluable aid to teaching fluent reading.  In fact, reading poetry is the #1 way to improve fluency!

The following poem is one I like to use when studying verbs.  It has a nice variety of action words and I love to point out the verbs the poet chose to use in place of some “tired” ones.

A bonus with this poem is the extensive use of personification.  While you may not think a lesson on personification is appropriate for 1^st graders, in order to truly understand the poem, your students will need to realize that the “I” in the poem is the March wind.  Obviously, for older students, personification is an appropriate lesson and is beautifully illustrated in this poem.

Virtually every poem has a grammar lesson hiding in it, just waiting to jump out at you.  All that’s required is to start looking at poems differently.  Try using fresh eyes to identify possible grammar lessons in this poem:

How did you do?  Here some teaching points I found:

1. The importance of using capital letters for months of the  year; how hard would it be to understand this poem if it didn’t have a capital M on the name of the month?

2. Homonyms could be studied starting with merry/marry/Mary and/or I/eye/aye.

3. The vowel digraph /ay/ is plentiful in this poem.  You may want to make an anchor chart for this digraph.  Extend the learning by including other digraphs for the long a sound.

4. Review punctuation and “reading the punctuation.”  The hyphen may be new to your students.  This is a perfect vehicle for studying it.

5. Identify parts of speech: nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives…

Be sure to hop back soon for more ideas about using poetry in the classroom.

You can find more possibilities for teaching with poetry in --

Groundhog Day 3.0

One of the things I love to do with my students is immerse them in poetry because it offers so many teaching possibilities. Naturally you can focus on poetic structures and poetic devices.   But have you ever used poetry to teach reading skills? Because poetry is usually short and the message concise, it's a perfect venue for studying vowel sounds, contractions, punctuation, parts of speech, syllables, rimes, inflections, ....  The  possibilities are almost endless.  It's always good practice to relate these skills to what is being read.  Practicing skills in isolation may transfer to reading skill building; then again it may not.  

Each poem has reading skills already built into it.  All you have to do is look at it with a "reading skills eye."  Thus, if the poem is replete with a particular consonant blend, use it in a guided reading lesson about that blend.  If the poem has a sprinkling of contractions, devise a review lesson about contractions using the poem.  As an example, look at the following poem, noting that it has several compound words in it.

Due to the structure of a poem, it is easier for young children to locate the compound words.  If you reproduced this poem on sentence strips for use in a pocket chart, that would facilitate  identifying the compound words as a group.  With a little magic and masking tape, you could make the compound words come apart.  Alternately, you might focus on the punctuation and how it helps the reader to read with expression.  Or, you might choose to conduct a mini-lesson on the inflections -ing and -ed.

As a reading specialist, I highly recommend using poems for guided reading lessons and review lessons.  It has always been a favorite activity of my remedial students if for no other reason than they had less text to conquer.

While wearing my other hat, enrichment specialist, I developed Poetry Possibilities for my colleagues with teaching points identified for them.  For example, the Possibilities  for the above poem include:

As item #3 indicates, poetry can also be a launchpad for differentiating instruction.  Gifted and talented students deserve and require our attention, but it can be quite taxing to provide extensions for them.  I have dedicated most of my career to creating challenges for G/T children.  Most of my products on TpT reflect that commitment.  I hope you will go here to check out my critical and creative thinking products.

If you are interested in more seasonal poems with teaching points and skill suggestions, visit my TpT store here for February poems and possibilities.  You may also be interested in Black History Month Poetry Possibilities.  Just a word of caution: reading poetry is principally about creating enthusiasm for reading.  Take care not to defeat that goal by always turning poetry reading into a skill drill.