Learning About Language through Rhymes

One important strategy we use in our classroom to learn about language is using rhymes.  Playing with words and sounds in words develops phonemic awareness, a beginning step to lay a strong foundation for reading and writing.

Children’s names are one personal way to learn about language.

This is a rhyme we use everyday in our circle time.

Hickety, pickety bumble-bee

Who can say their name for me?

When a child says his or her name.  We follow the child’s lead to clap, snap, and stomp the “parts” or syllables in each name.  For example we clap two times as we say “An-nie.”  We clap one time for “John.”

Children can hear and play with sounds in their names.  Try our rhyme with your family’s names. 

Words like “hickety” and “pickety” are another example of playing with language using rhyme. In these words, children develop sensitivity to hear the rhymes in words. Listen for rhyming words on television commercials and everyday things!

Image from beachpackagingdesign.com

Try playing with rhymes at home.  Say a rhyme in the morning when you wake up your child or when you walk to the car or bus stop.  Follow this link to find more rhymes and finger-plays from the librarians at the public library.

"Is not... Is too!"  "Is not... Is too!"  “S...not...S...tew!”  “Snot Stew?”  From the kitten’s point of view in Bill Wallace’s book, Snot Stew, the children’s confusing argument of “is not” and response, “is too!” sounds like dinner.   "Is not...Is too!" could also be the cry of teachers, administrators, parents, and students in the debate concerning the practice of using popular culture and media in the classroom.  In the world of the elementary classroom, young children will always bring relevant experiences from everyday lives with them to the “official” world of school literacy.  The real question might be who's in charge of the cultural resources and knowledge that include popular media and to what end?

Popular culture is the student’s turf and also stretches the notion of "what counts" as literacy work in our classrooms.   Anne Haas Dyson’s work as an early childhood researcher emphasizes how popular media shapes children’s lives. Young children’s use of popular culture informs both academic and social action in the classroom.  The difficulty lies in the appropriation of this valuable way of knowing.

The teacher’s stance is critical when incorporating popular culture/media in the classroom to make sure the young student’s knowledge is respected.  Jesse Gainer, an educational researcher at Texas State University, considers three roles the teacher might assume that seem helpful in our teaching dilemma of what to do with this broad notion of literacy.  The roles are learner, guide, and authority. 

Teacher as learner.  Most importantly, as teachers we must be willing to learn from the students as they share and use their engaging worlds of outside interests. Listening to the students as they talk about what they care about and asking questions about why particular “texts” are important to them builds this kind of relationship. Being respectful of students’ interests and tastes, even when they conflict with our own, is challenging when teachers are concerned and questioned by the public about what counts as learning in our classrooms.

Teacher as guide. The teacher acts as a guide in assisting students to look critically at these popular culture texts, facilitating, not dictating students’ learning.  Sharing our own interests as literacy user to literacy user is powerful and models how to critically discuss and share knowledge that builds a community where we all are  inquirers.

Teacher as authority.  The third role isn't one you might consider as a traditional role of teaching authority. We must use our own authority to protect our students’ pleasure associated with popular media texts.  Our sensitivity to and respect for children’s interests will determine if the literary practices they bring will be meaningfully integrated into school practices.  Gainer’s (2007) comment that “the teacher of critical media literacy must be careful not to appropriate or co-opt, children’s everyday texts for the purpose of an adult-centered critique.  Rather the teacher should incorporate children’s interests into curriculum as a means to connect to students’ lives and show the relevance of class work to their lives” (p.112).   

Popular culture is not just a “hook” or as a way to hold interest, popular culture is necessary to teach how to use literacy in current times. Popular culture becomes a place to experience pleasure, to explore identities, as well as for negotiation and struggle. Children are valued when their own knowledge and interests are valued and at the center of using multiple literacies to make sense of the world.

Work cited:

Dyson, A. H. (2003). Popular literacies and the “all” children:  Rethinking literacy development for contemporary childhoods. Language Arts 81, 100–109.

Gainer, J. (2007). Social critique and pleasure: Critical media literacy with popular culture texts.  Language Arts 85(2), 106-114.

Wallace, B. (1990/2008).  Snot Stew. Aladdin Books.

Honoring Stories through Performance

Performance engages young learners as "entire people, physically, mentally, vocally in the creation and exploration of text" Gus Weltsek. Gus illustrates through his work shown in this video how he encourages and uses the young men's own stories so that they can begin to use these experiences to understand and engage in the curriculum of school in a personal way. Truly honoring students lives through story empowers these learners.

This advice to teachers from

Rebecca Alber about how to inspire summer reading holds true for teacher's summer reading as well. Choosing an author or two to read for the summer is a productive practice. Authors like Naomi Shihab Nye or Cynthia Rylant who write across genres and generations are particularly inspiring.

1) Invite students to give Book Talks to the entire class. Who influences kids the most? Their peers, of course, so providing children opportunities to pitch books to classmates can be incredibly effective and powerful.

2) Introduce kids (and especially those reluctant readers!) to a book series. This will inspire them to seek out the next book, and the next, and the next.

3) Provide your students and their families with the “Latest and Greatest” in fiction and non-fiction for the grade level you teach. I’ve had students come back to me the next year, and there are x’s by several book titles (they used the reading list I gave them as a check list!)

4) If teaching older kids, set up a Facebook page all about books. Students will then be able to share with their classmates (and you!) updates on what they are reading and post their book reviews.

5) Start or end class with a Read and Tease. This means you read a few enticing lines from a book (it can be the opening words, or midway through). For my students, I’d give a dramatic reading of the opening paragraph and then place the book on the rim of the whiteboard. At the end of class, at least 2 or 3 students would ask to check it out.

Everyone has a story to tell. As I read anything it seems I am looking for a connection that relates what I am reading to my own story. My first introduction to digital storytelling came from Deneen Fraizier Bowen who showed several digital stories in a keynote address I attended a couple of years ago. It was the story that caught my attention initially- a teacher struggling to uncover the amazing potential of each of her students in the midst of standardization and uniformity. But as I was challenged to make my own digital story I realized the power of the other modes (in my case photographs, computer images I found, music, and my own voice) were more powerful as a whole that any of the individual parts. The process I experienced in choosing and creating was transformative. Digitales has one of my first stories and stories from many others who have experienced the power of storytelling 21st century style.

The importance of a classroom library for ALL teachers.

Making Sure They Are Learning | Edutopia

Authentic assessment of reading comprehension- but even more than that understanding of 'a plan' for students to continue to grow as a reader

Making Sure They Are Learning | Edutopia