Small Reads for Brighters Days
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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. 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!
