This past Wednesday, I spent time in a kindergarten classroom of an elementary school located in downtown Knoxville. For my inquiry, I chose to focus on a reading lesson that covered rhyming. The lesson itself was actually taught using the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence", which was great because it was something that we've read about previously. Using nursery rhymes are great to use for small children because they rhyme (obviously), are familiar, and they are funny. I know that the teacher of this class introduces a new poem at the beginning of the week, they place a copy of the poem in their "poetry journals", and each day they reread the poem together (rereading has also been encouraged in multiple places in our past readings). One day they go through and find their letters of the week, the next day they look for the rhyming endings, and so on and so forth until the poem has been dissected completely by the end of the week. Typically, the kids have it memorized by this point too.
This activity kept them engaged and they were happily singing the rhyme together. Seeing it implemented in person was very helpful for me, and if I end up teaching little ones like that in the future, I will most certainly use this activity. The rhyme was written in large, clear letters on a huge notepad that was visible to all of the students. As the poem was read, a pointer tool was used to point to each word as it was read to help the kids follow along. The teacher made her return sweep exaggerated as well. All of these techniques that were used to read the poem were necessary because these children could not read and would just be looking at the text blindly if the teacher had not modeled how to read the poem. To further the kids' understanding of the nursery rhyme, the teacher opened up the interactive website called Starfall online, and played the video version of the rhyme. I though this aspect essential because kindergartens have no idea what things like "sixpence" or "rye" are, and adding a visual helps them put it all together. In addition, the video was funny and had the children laughing, which I think should be something that happens all the time...making learning fun.
This activity kept them engaged and they were happily singing the rhyme together. Seeing it implemented in person was very helpful for me, and if I end up teaching little ones like that in the future, I will most certainly use this activity. The rhyme was written in large, clear letters on a huge notepad that was visible to all of the students. As the poem was read, a pointer tool was used to point to each word as it was read to help the kids follow along. The teacher made her return sweep exaggerated as well. All of these techniques that were used to read the poem were necessary because these children could not read and would just be looking at the text blindly if the teacher had not modeled how to read the poem. To further the kids' understanding of the nursery rhyme, the teacher opened up the interactive website called Starfall online, and played the video version of the rhyme. I though this aspect essential because kindergartens have no idea what things like "sixpence" or "rye" are, and adding a visual helps them put it all together. In addition, the video was funny and had the children laughing, which I think should be something that happens all the time...making learning fun.
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