Friday, January 15, 2010

Playing with Poems {Poetry Friday}


Day and Night

The sun went up,
the sun went down.
The children slept
all over town.

I found a great poetry resource, Playing with Poems Word Study Lessons for Shared Reading, K-2. Zoe Ryder White had word study goals she wanted to achieve through poetry and found it hard to find poems to match her word study goals. She began to write her own poems which resulted in this book and encourages others to do so. The introduction provides a great section explaining and reinforcing the importance for shared reading. There are four chapters all together with the first providing a collection of teaching methods one can use with poetry in the classroom. This list was very helpful to think through with a mix of old and new ideas for me. I feel many things this year are a crash refresher course on emergent literacy. One idea I read about which I think the students will love is the mystery sight word bag. Several sight words from a poem are placed in a brown paper bag. Students pull one card out and match it to the word for each time they see it in the particular poem. The next three chapters correspond to literacy work found in kindergarten, first, and second grade.

Each poem provides many entry points and learning targets for literacy. You will find a list of beginning and ending letter sounds, blends, spelling patterns, and sight words. Curricular goals follow with lessons ideas for introducing and revisiting. Each poem closes with a From the Classroom....a piece of writing reflecting and documenting class room organization. I was pleasantly surprised when the ending of the book provides tips for the reader to write their own poems, collect poetry, and using student poetry. This book guides and empowers teachers to think on their own, enjoy.

1 comment:

  1. After reading your review, I added this to my wish list on Amazon. It sounds like a book I could use with my word study program. I am constantly searching for poems to use for shared reading that correspond to my word study goals. Thanks for the suggestion! Julie

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