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Tip #18: Let the Poet Read [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #18: Let the poet read. If you’re self-conscious about reading poetry aloud, one way to ease into it is let the poets themselves read! I love the Poetry Speaks to Children anthology that comes with a CD of many
Tip #17: Give a Line Some Space [and 15 Words or Less Poems]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #17: Give a line some space. One approach to reading poems aloud is to do a slight pause at the end of each line, whether there is punctuation there or not. That’s the identifying factor of poetry, after all. Poets break their
Tip #16: Add Sound Effects [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #16: Add sound effects. Have kids make sound effects appropriate to the poem. Kids love being sound effects experts, and it give pre-readers, especially, a great way to be part of a poem reading when they don’t actually know the poem yet.
Tip #15: Echo Read [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #15: Echo read. Try echo reading. You read a line, and then the students echo it back to you. This is great for helping students’ fluency, and I’m always amazed at how quickly and how well they pick up on performance nuances.
Tip #14: Riddle Me This [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #14: Make it a riddle. Turn a poem into a riddle. Kids love riddle poems, and they are super fun to both read and write. (I had a blast with riddleku in National Poetry Month of 2014 and even turned them into
Tip #13: Lights Out! [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #13: Turn out the lights! Turn out the lights to help students focus. When you remove visual input, students are often able to listen more carefully. Fewer distractions. Something unexpected and new. It can add a little more focus
Tip #12: Use a Prop [and 15 Words or Less Poems]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #12: Use a Prop Use a simple prop to help share a poem visually. When I share Elaine Magliaro’s “Things to Do If You Are a Pencil,” I hold up–a pencil. And I point to each part of the pencil mentioned in
Tip #11: Focus on Transitions [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #11: Focus on transition words. In narrative poems that tell a story, emphasize transition words, like “then,” or “first,” or “next” to help kids follow the chronology and make sense of the series of events. Or if the poem doesn’t use obvious
Tip #10: Emphasize Important Words [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #10: Emphasize important words. Sometimes when you’re sharing a poem, you might be talking about a specific aspect of it, whether that’s the rhyme or a repeated word or something else. I might include this poem, “Dancin’ (Snow)Man,” in a discussion about
Tip #9: Speed It Up! [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #9: Speed it up. Speed up a poem! When you’re repeating a poem that’s about a fast topic, speed up your reading. Often, we’ll start out reading the poem slowly, so they get to know the words and meaning a bit. Then
Tip #8: Connect With the Poem & Poetry Friday Roundup!
Happy Poetry Friday! I’m so pleased to be hosting Poetry Friday today, and thank you for dropping in! First, I’m going to continue my month-long series of Poetry Tips for Teachers. Tip #8: Connect With the Poem Help kids connect before reading the poem. Let’s take this poem from Lee Bennett Hopkins’ charming new board
Tip #7: Walk and Stop [and 15 Words or Less Poems]
Tip #7: Walk and Stop Walk around the room as you read, and then STOP moving at the most important, powerful part of the poem. Kids will naturally be following your progress, and when you suddenly stop, they will pay attention to what’s happening. When reading the poem draft below that is today’s 15 Words
Tip #6: Make a Face [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. [Addendum: I had a little issue with a disappearing blog post and rewriting it and–well, I’ll spare you the details. I apologize for having the same basic tip two days in a row, but this one has a bit more detail and a
Tip #5: Make a Face [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Tip #5: Make a face. Keep an appropriate expression. Don’t grin during a sad poem or look serious during silly verse. If you were to smile while reading this poem, for instance, your students might be a little disturbed–or think you are!
Tip #4: Slow Down [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Tip #4: Slow down. Read slowly. Much more slowly than you would read prose. Poems are dense and compact and a lot to take in! Here I am reading the poem–as slowly as I can:>) [soundcloud url=“https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/198628798” params=“color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=“100%” height=“166” iframe=“true” /]
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Are You Looking For?
Go to my Poetry page for:
- National Poetry Month projects through the years
- Small Reads Roundups (poems grouped by topic)
- Introductions to several favorite poetry forms