#3410, Agnes L.

DeWitt, Week 7, Using Poems to Teach Whole Words and Phonic Skills

The grade level I am aiming to reach is 5th.

CCSS ELA Standards: Foundational Skills Phonics and Word Recognition: Know and
apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
A description of how I will teach the whole word and the phonics skill: (phonics) I
will start out by explaining to the students what we would be doing for lesson. I would
then write the word on the board and pronounce it. I would then show the students how
the word is written in the dictionary. Then I would have students to pronounce the word.
(whole word) I will explain to the students what we would be doing for the lesson. I
would write the word on the board and pronounce it and write a sentence with the word
in it on the board. I would have students to pronounce the word, and then write the word
in a sentence. Students would pair up and read their sentence to their partner.
I would then do a guided reading lesson by having students to read aloud certain sections
of the poem.
I would close by having students to say each of the words.
Description of the activity:

Good Morning Students

Today, we are going to continue to study our literacy skills.
We are going to use phonics and word recognition through the use of poetry. The poem that we
will be reading is, A Bird, came down the Walk, by Emily Dickinson. Before we read the
poem there are a couple of words we will study.
The first word is cautious. We will look at this word using our phonics skills.
Teacher will write the word on the board from the dictionary and pronounce the word.
Cautious cautious showing careful forethought.
Teacher will then sound out word using phonics.
Students will repeat the word after the teacher.
Teacher will also have students to think of words that begin with cau and have the same sound
as cautious. Ex., caught, caution, cauliflower, caulk, causal, causable, cause, caught, caustic.
The other word that we will look at is glanced. We will look at this word using our whole word
skills through guided reading.
Teacher will write the word on the board and pronounce the word.
Teacher will have students to pronounce the word.
Glanced a quick look
Teacher will use the word in a sentence and then have students to make up a sentence using
glanced.
Have students to pair up and read their sentence to partner.
Teacher will call on students to read sections of the poem.
For closure, students will say the two words.

A Bird, came down the Walk

By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
He did not know I saw
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass
He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head.
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, edited by R.W. Franklin (Harvard
University Press, 1999)

I chose the whole word because I thought that students would not recognize the word
in print. I chose the phonic skill word because I thought that cautious maybe a difficult
word for students to pronounce and they may not be able to get the blend of cau.

I selected the poem, A Bird, came down the Walk, because this poem talks about
scientific elements. This poem covers literacy as well as science.

I enjoyed building a lesson using poems. I have used this technique before and the 5th
graders in my afterschool program really like this concept. I could also see giving
students a list of words and having them to write a poem.

Critiques on the video: Positive: I think that I chose a poem that would be of interest to
5th graders; this poem is not done in isolation science embedded
Changes that could be made: I could have used more detail in the video (would be
different if there were 25 fifth graders looking at me)