A poem I wrote for my final project for Emergent Lit. The two guidelines for our final project said 1. it needed the be creative and 2. it needed to demonstrate we understand the concepts from this year. Here is my creative project for the class, a poem.
Teaching Emergent Literacy
It isn’t easy to teach literacy.
No, it isn’t easy as you can see.
Just how can you teach those ABCs
Extremely quickly and extremely effectively?
Literacy is more than just letters you know!
It’s how to say them and where in spelling they go.
It’s interacting with words as we travel to and fro.
It’s reading, writing, speaking, and listening also.
Kids learn in many ways each year.
Phonological awareness is what they hear.
With children, they may fail at it they fear,
But once they master literacy, you will hear them cheer!
To help kids become literate there are many ways
You can teach many things in just a few days.
Give kids the option of many kinds of play:
Dramatic or block or active activities each day.
And whatever you do, don’t forget to read books—
Out loud, in small groups, or wherever you look.
Kids can read silently or in pairs in a special book nook.
Often, you can use circle time as an interesting hook.
Don’t forget to connect learning at school with learning at home, too.
Literacy is a skill students will want to pursue.
Though they might sometimes moan and complain they are blue,
Keep teaching, and one day, you’ll see a breakthrough!
As teachers, we must be our classroom’s guide.
And teach kids to take both success and failure in stride.
At the end of the year we’ll look back with pride
As we match educational goals and practices side by side.
It isn’t easy to teach literacy.
No, it isn’t easy as you can see.
But it’s about as rewarding as it can be
To give emergent learners the gift of literacy!
