Poetry exposes kids to rich vocabulary, and teaches them to become critical and creative thinkers about language. As well as enriching student vocabulary and teaching students how to paint a picture with their words, it can also boost comprehension, expression and fluency skills, rhyme, rhythm, phonological and grammar skills.
It also is a great way to support struggling readers, as it is easier (and less overwhelming) for them to deal with small chunks of text as a time.
So how do I use poetry to focus on and boost all of these skills?
I love to incorporate a daily poetry focus into our classroom weekly routine. This blog post outlines the full process that would be followed in an ideal world. BUT, we are busy and it can be hard to envisage fitting all of this into an already crammed curriculum- so you can pick and choose the parts that work best for you within each week. As you will see, we focus on far more than just poetry- we also build our comprehension, vocabulary, reading, grammar and creative thinking skills. Some days will just be a mini lesson focus or quick lesson break, other days will be a more extended lesson.
Selecting Focus Poem
I select one focus poem for the week. These later become our ‘warm up’ poems at the start of our poetry sessions. I choose poems not because they link to a particular Key Learning Area or theme, but because children will be engaged by them and enjoy them- some will make them laugh, others will make them think.
Across the week, a daily poetry focus session can look like this:
- SESSION 1: COMPREHENSION FOCUS
- SESSION 2: WOW WORDS/VOCABULARY FOCUS
- SESSION 3: FLUENCY/EXPRESSION FOCUS
- SESSION 4: WORD WORK
- SESSION 5: RESPOND
SESSION 1: COMPREHENSION FOCUS
- We start with a warm up (3-4 minutes)- these are poems from previous weeks which we quickly recite together.
- Teacher reads the Focus Poem (I may read it through more than once)
- Comprehension questions from teacher- a mix of literal (‘the answer is right there’) questions, background knowledge, think and search, reading between the lines, compare/contrast, making connections, and asking for student opinions.
- Comprehension questions from students. Some ways that I may do this include: providing students with question stems to ask the class, Think/Pair/Share, interviewing a character, or basketball discussions where the students bounce ideas off one another.
- If time allows, we read the poem together, or I read it to them one more time.
- Read for enjoyment- I read them any other poem purely for them to enjoy.
SESSION 2: VOCABULARY FOCUS
- We start with a warm up (3-4 minutes)- these are poems from previous weeks which we quickly recite together.
- I read our Focus Poem to the class. Then we read it all together.
- Vocabulary Focus: we unpack any unknown words, look them up, discuss when we could use them in our writing, and practice using them in sentences (either verbally or on mini whiteboards). We create a mind map of words that we collect throughout our poetry sessions, which I then encourage students to use in their writing.
- If time allows, we read the poem together again.
- Read for enjoyment- I read them any other poem purely for them to enjoy.
SESSION 3: FLUENCY/EXPRESSION FOCUS
- We start with a warm up (3-4 minutes)- these are poems from previous weeks which we quickly recite together.
- We read our Focus Poem together (once or twice)
- Fluency/Expression focus: we work on expression, fluency, phrasing, pace, intonation etc. I particularly model to the students how they can use their voices to reflect the words that they are reading. E.g. in one of our favourite poems “The Super Tilting Hurlacoaster”, we use our voices to demonstrate words and phrases like ‘nose-dive’, ‘threw me to and fro’, ‘queasy’ or ‘loop the loop’.
- Read for enjoyment- I read my students any other poem purely for them to enjoy.
SESSION 4: WORD WORK
- We start with a warm up (3-4 minutes)- these are poems from previous weeks which we quickly recite together.
- We read our Focus Poem together (once or twice) and ensure that we use the fluency/expression that we worked on yesterday.
- Word/Letter Work focus: using words from the poem as inspiration, we do some letter/sound work based around particular focus/es. These could be rhyme, contractions, strong verbs, adjectives, adverbs, similes, personification, or whatever focus you like!
- If time allows, we read the poem once more together. By this stage, students will probably know the poem off by heart, and will be reciting it with a lot of fluency and expression.
- Read for enjoyment- I read them any other poem purely for them to enjoy.
SESSION 5: RESPOND
This session can often take a little longer.
- We start with a warm up (3-4 minutes)- these are poems from previous weeks which we quickly recite together.
- We read our Focus Poem together (once or twice)
- Respond: Students respond in a creative way to the poem. I often just use drawings, but their responses could be anything creative, depending on how much time you have to dedicate to it! Some examples could be making a tune/rap, acting it out, making a poster, writing a review, continuing the poem, writing a story, painting etc.
- If time allows, we read the poem once more together. Students will most likely know the poem off by heart by this stage.
- Read for enjoyment- I read them any other poem purely for them to enjoy.
WHERE TO FIND POEMS?
There are lots of wonderful, vocabulary-rich poems out there! One website that I recommend is https://fizzyfunnyfuzzy.com/poems
WHAT TO PRIORITISE IF YOU CAN'T DO IT ALL
At the very least, I try to ensure we read through our focus poem a couple of times a day, add new wow words to our vocabulary display, and spend some time on comprehension questions/fluency and expression. If I have time, I also schedule some time for responding to the poem, grammar work in relation to our focus poem, reading poems for enjoyment, and re-reading past poems together!
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