Literacy through Rhythm, Rhyme, Poetry and Presentation

Literacy Through Rhythm, Rhyme, Poetry, and Presentation

Yesterday I attended a session of Literacy through Rhythm, Rhyme, Poetry, and Presentation. This group of presenters was from Powers Ferry Elementary School in Marietta, Georgia which included Carol Bradley (Primary Literacy Coach), Donna Byrd (Kindergarten Teacher) and Kim Pennington (First Grade Teacher). Their school has 450 – 500 students K-5 and are in their 5th year of being an America’s Choice School.

They believe in the importance of Providing Oral Language Activities. They began by reviewing the Five Areas of Reading – Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. They remind us that a fluent reader is able to:
-read accurately
- read smoothly through the words
- move along at a comfortable rate
- show appropriate expression
- phrase the words
- attend to punctuation and text features
- demonstrate comprehension

In order to build fluency they list 5 types of oral performance:
Shared reading – the teacher and students read together in unison from a shared text so that the readers’ processing of print is highly supported.
- Enlarged text and individual copies help to provide this opportunity
- Use a white board
- Big books
- Shurley English Program Method
Echo reading - an activity where a skilled reader reads a text, a sentence at a time, as the learner tracks. The learner then echoes or imitates the skilled reader.
- They also use chants for this type of fluency building.
Texts for two voices – texts (poetry or prose) that lend themselves to being read aloud by two voices (sometimes alternating, sometimes simultaneous) are ready by two or more readers. - Similar to choral reading
(Example with Expressive Alphabet chart with punctuation marks)
Readers’ theater - involves children in oral presentation through reading or telling parts on scripts. Resources for Readers’ Theatre:
- 25 Just-Right Plays for Emergent Readers (K/1)
- Readers’ Theatre (Grade 1 or 2) by Evan – Moor Educational Publishers
Poetry - expands listening and speaking vocabulary, knowledge of complex syntax of language, internalizes of memorable literary language, recognizes high frequency words, and builds a sense of community through sharing common language experiences. Resources for poetry:
* The Poetry Foundation
* BBC
* Giggles Poetry
* Sing a Song of Poetry


If you get the opportunity here are a couple websites they recommend for building fluency.
* Larry Ferlazzo
* BBC
* Scripts for School