Teach the Five Components of Reading (with Just One Thanksgiving Phonics Poem)

Image of Thanksgiving pilgrim holding mashed potatoes

Teach the Five Components of Reading (with Just One Thanksgiving Phonics Poem)

With the Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, November is a shorter teaching month, so every literacy mini-lesson really needs to count. Would you believe one short Thanksgiving poem can help you teach all five of the essential components of reading? It’s absolutely true. For example, the Thanksgiving poem, “Mashed Potatoes,” targets the consonant digraphs /ch/and /sh/ …

Image of cat eating mouse from phonics poem, "Mice in Line," by Lorrie L. Birchall

Teach Phonics with Short Poems

First of all, what are phonics poems? They’re simply poems that can be used as good examples (exemplars) to teach specific phonics skills. Why use phonics poems for teaching reading? 1. Phonics poems provide an efficient use of short instructional time: As a reading intervention teacher, I typically had between 15-20 minutes to work with …

Teach Short & Long Vowels With Poems

Phonics poems help teach short and long vowel sounds Phonics poems differ from other types of poetry because they are written specifically to be a targeted teaching text. They are strategically embedded with words of a certain spelling or sound pattern (such as the long o vowel/silent e) to help teach that specific phonics skill. …