Building Blocks of Language Learning

I'm pausing for a moment in my month-long showcase of my students' creative work to look at another session I'm presenting at the Texas Library Association conference. Here are the details:

Building Blocks of Language Learning

What role does the librarian play in building readers? This session focuses on using a rich poetry toolbox that supports ELAR and ELL TEKS to acquire language skills. Learn to teach educators to celebrate language with humor and meaning. 

We're looking at how sharing a poem can also showcase the requisite skills that young children are acquiring as they develop their language knowledge-- and in a way that is engaging and appealing. We'll be sharing poems for several key language learning areas as models. Here are just a few!

SKILL FOCUS: How English is written and printed. The line breaks of poetry provide one example.

SKILL FOCUS: Phonological awareness (phonics). How sound works in poetry, particularly rhyme and alliteration.

SKILL FOCUS: Decoding words using many sources of input. Here, we focus on synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms.

SKILL FOCUS: Understanding new vocabulary. Poetry is FULL of vivid words and an ideal tool for developing and expanding children's vocabularies. 

SKILL FOCUS: The use of conventions in writing, particularly capitalization and punctuation. Poets make creative and frequent use of these tools!



SKILL FOCUS: Spelling and how words should be spelled. Poets play with words, spelling, and coining of new words in creative ways. 

We even offer a complete matrix of skills coverage in THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR CELEBRATIONS that shows how each of these skills is present in poems in the book. 

And finally, there are so many wonderful works of poetry that feature these same elements (line breaks, opposites, wordplay, rhyme, alliteration, etc.). Check them out!