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 transition words, say words louder that you think will help ground kids in the story and make sense of what’s going on. Listeners really depend on your voice modulation and inflection to help them know immediately what are the most important words they need to hear and comprehend.
Here’s a poem that summarizes the fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk from my Fairy Tale Garage Sale collection. It introduces the set of poems based in the world of Jack.
And here I am reading the poem with a little bit of emphasis.