By: Lynne Kulich, PhD & Timothy Rasinski, PhD

Attempts to improve reading outcomes, especially among students who struggle to become proficient reading, have been in the reading spotlight in the past few years. The solution that is most commonly offered is a stronger emphasis on direct systematic phonics instruction (e.g. Sold a Story podcast, 2022).   While we completely agree that phonics is essential to reading success, phonics itself is only one part of the equation to develop proficient readers.

The aim of phonics instruction is for readers to be able to decode words accurately.  However, consider a reader who is able to decode words accurately but does so in an overly slow word-by-word manner without paying any attention to phrasing or expression. Clearly, we would not consider such readers proficient.  Truly proficient readers not only decode words accurately, they also decode the words they read effortlessly and they read text with good phrasing.    

Fluency in reading involves teaching students to read text not only accurately but also automatically or effortlessly.  The significance of automatic word recognition is that readers no longer have to employ their cognitive resources to decode the words in text – the words are instantly decoded with minimal use of cognitive resources.  Those freed up resources can then be employed to the more important task in reading – comprehension.    

Fluency also involves reading with what linguists call prosody.  We prefer to call it reading with expression and phrasing that reflects the meaning of the text.  In order to read with prosody, readers need to be attending to the meaning of the text. Thus, prosodic reading aids in comprehension.

Studies by the National Assessment of Educational Progress have shown that large numbers of lower performing fourth grade readers tend to struggle in both automatic word recognition and prosodic reading.    Clearly, then, developing fluency in these students, both automaticity and prosody, will significantly improve reading proficiency.    Fluency instruction must be a part of any science-based reading curriculum.

The Tools for Developing Fluency

• Modeling Fluent Reading.   Young readers need to hear fluent reading in order to understand reading fluency.   This means teachers, parents, and others should read to their children regularly and make sure that when they do they read with expression that marks fluent reading.
• Wide Reading.   Fluency in anything requires practice.   Wide reading involves reading as much as possible.   Recent research (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 2021) has shown that reading volume is associated with reading achievement.
• Deep (Repeated) Reading.  Fluency often requires the learner to practice a text (or other activity) multiple times in order to achieve fluency.  Research (Rasinski, et al, 2011) has shown that repeatedly reading one text leads to improvements in new texts never before read.   The key to repeated reading (i.e. rehearsal) is to make it authentic.    If a text is meant to be performed for an audience it needs to be rehearsed- not for speed but for developing a sense of expression that an audience with find satisfying.    Texts such as readers theater scripts, poetry, song lyrics, and other are meant to be read aloud for an audience and are thus excellent choices for repeated reading.
• Assisted Reading.   If a text is challenging having an assist or scaffold from a more fluent reader can lead to fluent reading.   Assisted reading can take the form of choral reading as a group, paired reading where the partner is a more fluent reader, or reading while simultaneously listening to a prerecorded version of the text.    Assisted reading (Rasinski, et al, 2011) has been shown to be a powerful tool for developing fluency and overall reading proficiency.
• Phrased Reading.  Less fluent readers / tend to read / in a word-by-word manner / that disrupts the natural language / of the text / and makes  comprehension difficult. //   Helping students / read in phrases / by marking a text / with phrase boundaries / can move students / to more natural and meaningful phrasing / that will improve reading fluency / and comprehension.//

These basic fluency development tools, by themselves, can move students toward higher levels of fluency and reading proficiency.   However, if we can combine these tools into a single lesson format we get synergy – a situation where the benefit from a whole lesson combining these elements is greater than the sum of the parts alone.  This is where the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL) comes in.   

The Fluency Development Lesson

The FDL is a systematic, explicit, science-backed instructional practice that when implemented regularly closes reading gaps for all students, including multilingual learners (National Reading Panel, 2000; Kulich 2009; Zimmerman, et al., 2019). While the FDL supports all foundational reading skills, it targets fluency since reading difficulties often manifest in this area (White, et al., 2021), and its flexible design supports readers of all ages.

Implemented in 15-20 minutes, the FDL includes effective assisted reading practices like choral, echo, and partner reading. Initially, the FDL was created to be delivered in a single day using short, grade-level passages (Rasinski, 2010; Rasinski, Padak, Linek, & Sturtevant, 1994). Research suggests that scaffolded, repeated reading of a single text over the course of a week leads to gains in fluency and comprehension skills (Stahl & Heubach, 2005). So, we encourage students to read the same text throughout the school week with a variety of scaffolds. Additionally, you’ll find embedded activities to target all literacy skills, i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing. You’ll also notice activities for students to continue developing all foundational reading skills, such as phonemic awareness and phonics. 

Planning 

First, choose a grade-level text aligned to a reading scope and sequence, theme, or phonics skill.  The FDL supports your core curriculum. While any genre will do, our favorite is poetry.  Given its rich, rhythmic language, poetry is an obvious choice. This is particularly true for multilingual learners who benefit from the rhythm, rhyme, and repetition that poetry offers (Vardell, Hadaway, & Young, 2006).

Next, select the assisted reading practices needed to support your students, and plan to explicitly teach new vocabulary.  Remember students will need more scaffolding earlier rather than later in the week. Prepare to discuss the poet’s purpose, word choice, and theme because comprehension is always the goal.

Include opportunities for students to read aloud for different audiences, e.g., principal, custodian, etc., and include a written response activity. Reading and writing are synergistic, so be sure students write about the poem and share their responses. This experience helps develop the necessary dialogic communication skills students need and will use.

Finally, the FDL supports home-school partnerships. Students can read their weekly poems to someone at home.  Consider hosting classroom poetry parties and invite families to listen to students read their favorite poems.

Implementation

Monday: Present the new poem.Model fluent reading. Discuss poet’s purpose, word choice, and style. Identify rhymes, antonyms, hyperbole, etc. Students chorally echo read.

Tuesday:Reread poem.Review components of fluency (rate, accuracy & prosody).Students chorally read poem.Small groups of students read different lines or stanzas.Students locate words with r-controlled vowels, consonant clusters, homonyms, etc.

Wednesday:Teacher and students chorally read.Students partner read and provide feedback.Students volunteer to read for class.Students complete word activities, such as a Word Ladder.

Thursday:Students chorally read and self-evaluate.Volunteers read for class.Students read poem for families.Students complete writing activity.

Friday:Students read poem with different emotions.Students perform for different school audiences.Teacher records mystery readers.

Conclusion

I (Lynne) implemented the FDL with my elementary students, and no other instructional practice proved to engage my students and advance their reading skills like the FDL. One year, 12 first graders out of 27 were performing below grade level based on general reading outcome measures in the fall.  In addition, five of those students were multilingual learners. Due to limited bandwidth, not all 12 students qualified for Title 1 services.  I (Lynne) knew I had to leverage evidence-based reading practices – core instruction had to be solid.  Besides using the district’s curricular resources, which included an explicit phonics program, I (Lynne) implemented the FDL each day for 15 – 20 minutes.  All 27 students were reading on or above grade level by the spring.  The following year, none of the students qualified for Title 1 services (Kulich & Evanchan, 2007, 2008).

Pre and post reading data from my (Lynne’s) doctoral research (2009) with Karen children revealed the reading growth three students made during the summer and after-school sessions with the FDL. During this 9-week summer program for a total of 4½ hours a week, and the afterschool sessions from September through December for 1 hour a week, the multilingual learners made between two to three years of reading progress.  In addition, their attitudes towards reading significantly improved.

Fluency instruction can be engaging, authentic, and effective all at the same time.  The Fluency Development Lesson combines all the evidence-based tools for fluency instruction into a synergistic practice that closes reading gaps and promotes the joy of reading.

References (Lynne)

Allington, R.L., & McGill-Franzen, A.M. (2021). Reading Volume and Reading Achievement: A Review of Recent Research. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(S1), S231– S238. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.404

Kulich, L. S. (2009). The English reading development of Karen children using the Fluency Development Lesson in an intensive English language program: Three descriptive case studies (Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron).

Kulich, L. S., & Evanchan, G. (2007, November). The Fluency Factor: How did the fluency development lesson impact the literacy development of thirteen “at-risk” first grade readers? Paper presented at the Fiftieth Annual Meeting of the College Reading Association, Salt Lake City, UT. 

Kulich, L. S., & Evanchan, G. (2008, November). The Final Fluency Factor: How did the fluency development lesson impact the literacy development of thirteen “at risk” first grade readers? Paper presented at the Fifty-First Annual Meeting of the College Reading Association, Sarasota, FL. 

National Reading Panel. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read. Report of the subgroups.  Washington, DC:  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health.

Rasinski, T. V. (2010). The fluent reader: Oral reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency, and comprehension (2nd ed.). Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N. D., Linek, W. L., & Sturtevant, E. (1994). Effects of fluency development on urban second-grade readers. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 158–165.

Rasinski, T. V., Reutzel, C. R., Chard, D. & Linan-Thompson, S. (2011).  Reading Fluency.  In M. L. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, B. Moje, & P. Afflerbach E (Eds), Handbook of Reading Research, Volume IV (pp. 286-319).  New York:  Routledge.

Stahl, S., & Heubach, K. (2005). Fluency-oriented reading instruction. Journal of Literacy Research, 37, 25–60.

Vardell, S. M., Hadaway, N. L., & Young, T. A. (2006). Matching books and readers: Selecting literature for English learners. The Reading Teacher, 59(8), 734–741.

White, S., Sabatini, J., Park, B. J., Chen, J., Bernstein, J., and Li, M. (2021). The 2018 NAEP oral reading fluency study. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.

Zimmerman, B.S., Rasinski, T.V., Kruse, S.D., Was, C.A., Rawson, K.A., Dunlosky, J., & Nikbakht, E. (2019). Enhancing outcomes for struggling readers: Empirical analysis of the fluency development lesson, Reading Psychology, 40(1), 70-94. DOI: 10.1080/02702711.2018.1555365

By Dennis Schug

Do you ever stop to think about the chapters of your “reading life”?

We’ve all got them.  What are the highlights of your chapters?

It’s been a while since I’ve thought about my reading life, let alone written a new chapter.  That is, until now.  

This season is providing time and space to reflect.  It’s giving me confidence to take action.

My Reading Life: Chapter 1

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” – Margaret Fuller

Some of my earliest childhood memories include being surrounded by words: rich and colorful storytelling, adults who value words, written and spoken, and of course, books.  I read nightly bedtime stories and taught early and often to borrow books from the public library.  At 10 years of age, I’d ride my bicycle to meet the local public library’s summer bookmobile, which uncoincidentally was eventually filled with books from my favorite authors and genres.  Working at the public library as a high school student, I read nearly as many books as I was responsible for reshelving.  As a teacher, I began to remember our classroom library, which I made sure was stocked with more books than there was bookshelf space to hold them.  As a teacher leader, I simultaneously pursued certifications in literacy and school leadership.  Decades later, as a parent, I was afforded opportunities to “spoil” my own children with the gifts of words, like I once was.  I remained a voracious lifelong reader, especially of certain topics and genres.  I knew books made me better for others.

I recognize how fortunate I am to have grown up like this and to have circumstances that have helped me sustain an active reading life.  This has driven me to be a “reading principal,” discussing books with anyone willing to engage.  It’s my responsibility to model being a lifelong reader, create space for others to share, and for students to explore their own reading lives.

My Reading Life: Chapter 2

“The comeback is always stronger than the setback.”  – Unknown.

This became a mantra as our school communities courageously faced, navigated, and conquered myriad challenges of global pandemic times.  Priorities shifted from “getting lost in a good book” to ensuring students had resources to meet basic human needs.  What educators “had to do” replaced what we “got to do.”  Like so many, I found myself leading a team focused on others’ health, safety, and wellness.  It wasn’t only a top priority; it was the only priority.  I was and am fortunate.

The reading life I once knew changed suddenly and drastically.  I felt constantly distracted.  I had difficulty sustaining attention on any reading materials besides critical information to aid our team’s focus on doing what’s best for students.  

In quieter moments, I’d try losing myself in a book but found I just couldn’t.  I was not alone.  The more I spoke with others, the more this seemed to be a common challenge.  We were in survival mode.  After a while, we wondered if or when we’d return to more typical times.

Sometimes, we sensed a slow crawl, walk, and occasional run toward the comeback.  

We wondered, when was it that we’d return to doing what we “get to do”?  

My Reading Life: Chapter 3

“Mood follows action.” – Rich Roll

At the end of another school year (our first with sustained typical routines), I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy of Laura Robb’s latest book, Increase Reading Volume: Practical Strategies That Boost Students’ Achievement and Passion for Reading.  While it was among an ambitious stack of books I’d set out to read, it quickly rose to the top of the stack, becoming the literacy masterclass I didn’t know I needed.  

In one of the first sections that resonated with me as a lifelong reader, Robb emphasized the importance of “keeping in touch with your reading life.”

She explains, “A personal reading life enables you to experience the power of visualizing as a path to understanding, the need to talk to someone about a book resonating with you, and that sometimes, reading can be challenging work.  Your enthusiasm for and engagement in reading can rub off on students as they choose books they want to and can read, ensuring they will be engaged” (Robb, 2022).

These are precisely the words I needed to reignite my purpose for reading.  

My next steps became clear.

My Reading Life: Chapter 4

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” 

– James Clear

First, I listed books I’d been meaning to read, reread, or give as gifts.  I visited the public library, collected gift cards I’d received to make purchases, and splurged a bit at bookstores.  I made an agreement with myself to read every day – a certain number of pages or a certain number of minutes, whichever came first.  I’d use two bookmarks, one marking my starting point and the other my ending point for each reading period.  I’d keep a calendar, making an X each time I read.  Most days, I met my goal.  Some days. I didn’t.  But I never felt the shame of failure, only the opportunity to try again the next day.  Instead, I said to myself I’d never miss two days in a row, marking off two days’ worth of reading, often meeting or exceeding that goal.  I positioned books wherever they’d be most accessible.  Seeing a book next to my workout clothes, the coffee pot, or my car passenger seat were all regular reminders of my commitment to daily reading.    

To date, I’ve read more words, pages, and chapters than I have in many seasons.  I’m finding each book I read is often replaced by two on my “to read” list.  There’s a good chance I’ll never finish my entire stack.  This renewed habit gives me the confidence to talk with others about exploring the next chapters of their reading lives.  Books are making me better.  Books make us better.

By Jenn Hayhurst, & Jill DeRosa

Imagine entering a classroom where some students are working in small groups, others in partnerships, and some independently. There is a low but lively hum of students’ voices. Perhaps they are making plans for how to show their learning to the rest of their classroom community. Some might be negotiating the meaning of a text. Maybe they are conferring with another student about a learning goal. As all of this is happening, the teacher is moving freely through the classroom, keenly aware of how the space is functioning. Classroom supplies, tools, and charts are thoughtfully set up to provide easy access to all learners. The library is central to the function of the room and is reflective of students’ identities and interests. This classroom is a classroom built for agency.  

Agency is one of those ubiquitous terms in education. It seems to be everywhere, it is part of every presentation, and yet, when pressed to define it, its meaning is somewhat elusive.  In Peter Johnston’s seminal book, Choice Words, he defined agency as, “Children should leave school with a sense that if they act, and act strategically, they can accomplish their goals.  I call this feeling a sense of agency.”

Johnston’s book, Choice Words, lent legitimacy to the authentic approaches to teaching and learning we believe in. Having a sense of agency holds the promise to empower all to learn with a sense of agency because our work matters, and everyone has the potential to make a positive impact. We believe agency makes it possible for learning to be joyful and celebrated by everyone in the learning community.  In our book, WIRE for Agency Four Simple Moves that Transfer Learning, we expanded on Johnston’s definition: “Agency is a belief system that says your actions can and will make an impact. Students who exhibit agency feel valued; they operate with choice and a sense of freedom.  They keep learning and trying to achieve because they have conviction that their work matters.” 

Access, Language, and Choice: Three Core Beliefs to Sustain Agency

There are three core beliefs that sustain and nurture agency in the classroom. Giving access, careful deliberation for language, and offering choice are common beliefs shared by many teachers. However, these beliefs become even more powerful when used as a lens for agency:

1. Access: Students get what is needed (independence, additional support, and time) to think.
2. Language: Teachers use language as a vehicle to foster safety, empathy, equity, and trust.
3. Choice: Students are given a choice to decide content, planning, strategy, and people to work with. 

Realizing agency for teachers and students may be only one or two small tweaks away. One possible way to focus this work is to reflect on one aspect of the classroom environment. Let’s use the classroom library as an example:

1. Access: Determine if the reading materials in the library are reflective of the students in the class. Some questions to evaluate access might be: “Do the text bands match the reading readiness of the students in this classroom?”  “Do the books match their reading identities in terms of culture or  interests?”
2. Language:  Determine if there is evidence of student voice within the library. Some questions to ask students might be: “Do the categories of the bins make sense to you?” “How can a person find a book they are able to  read by themselves?” “What is the best part of the library? Why?”  “How do you select a book for your book bin?”  “How can the library be improved?”
3. Choice: Determine if the classroom library is open-ended for student participation. Managing the library and book selection has traditionally been under the purview of the teacher. If you give students some choice for book selection, this small library becomes an important step towards agency. Giving students some choice for how the space will be used and managed is another step toward agency.  Some questions to ask might be: “Is there evidence of student choice to influence in the classroom library?” If yes, “What is it?”  If no, “What can be shifted to include more choice?”

For the purpose of this post, we used the classroom library as an example, but there are many aspects of the classroom environment that can be a mediator for agency.  Here is a checklist that might be a useful tool to start this work. 

Closing Thoughts 

An agentive classroom does not have to be an imaginary place.  Many classrooms already have a lot of what it takes to grant access to agency for learning. If you are tired of students asking for supplies, then try moving supplies where they can be readily accessed. If you are tired of students asking for clarifying directions, try using an anchor chart that students help to create using language they understand. If you are tired of students saying, “I’m done.” try giving them choice for what to do next. These small but significant tweaks will make your teaching and their learning even more meaningful if you give it a go.  When we teach students to think flexibly about their classroom environment, it is but a stepping stone for them to challenge other “fixed” spaces in society. Life-long learners who are critical thinkers are who is needed for a better tomorrow. So start teaching for a sense of agency today.

Check out- WIRE for Agency: Four Simple Moves That Transfer Learning

By Tim Rasinski

The world is full of patterns. When we see a red octagonal sign while driving, we immediately think, “STOP!” Football fans can instantly recognize the shape of a goalpost and know what it’s used for. And when we hear the melody to a familiar song (think “Wheels on the Bus’ or “The Star-Spangled Banner”), we immediately recall the words. If you have a dog or cat at home, you are probably attuned to the pattern of the barks and mews. Indeed, look around the room in which you are in right now, and your are likely to see many patterns—from the way the ceiling tiles or lights are arranged to the way the classroom desks are arranged, or to the pattern of the quilt covering the couch.

            Patterns can be defined as a regular and repeated arrangements of shapes, letters, lines, numbers, colors, and sounds that can serve as guides. As human beings, we are predisposed to detect patters in our environments. Our ability to see, hear, feel, and identify patterns makes our lives safer, easier to negotiate, and more productive.

            Besides the types just mentioned, linguistic patterns can be used in teaching reading and writing. Of course, the letters of the alphabet and phonemes they represent are among the first patterns we teach children. Interestingly enough, we often teach the letters to young children with a song—The Alphabet Song—which itself is a patterned text.

However, there are many other patterns that can be used in teaching reading—patterns that can make learning more productive and more efficient for students. In this blog, I will share a few that I found to be very helpful in teaching children to read in the Kent State University reading clinic: Camp Read-A-Lot.

Help Students See Word Patterns: Phonemic Word Families/Phonograms/Rimes

One of the most widely used linguistic patterns taught in the primary grades are the phonemic word families—also known as phonograms or rimes. A phonemic word family is a part of the syllable that begins with the vowel (every syllable by definition needs to have a vowel or vowel combination) and all other letters that follow the vowel represent a regular or consistent set of phonemes or language sounds. For example, -each in ”teach”, and the –ent in the second syllable of “student” are word families. The significance of word families is that they are regularly occurring letter patterns that represent regularly occurring sound patterns.  Not only does knowledge of –each help a developing reader decode the word “teach,” but it can also help students decode “beach, breach, peach, preach, reach” and even longer, more complex words: “preacher, teachable.” Indeed, in a seminal article, Dr. Edward Fry identified thirty-eight-word families, knowledge of which allows readers to decode over 650 single-syllable words. Moreover, the number of multisyllabic words that can be decoded from knowledge of these letter patterns is in the thousands. For example, the word family –am finds its way into ambulance, camera, family, hamster, and many more.

            If we have this natural ability to see patterns, why not use them with students in our teaching of phonics and word decoding? Dr. Fry’s thirty-eight-word families could easily be taught once per week in first grade. Students would leave with the ability to analyze and decode a multitude of English words.

Edward Fry’s Most Common Phonograms -ab         -at        -ink       -ore                           -unk -ack       -ay       -ip         -ot                              -y -ag         -ell       -ight      -out -all         -est       -ill        -ow (how, chow) -ain        -ew       -im       -ow (bow, throw)   -am        -ed        -in        -op

Enlarge Students’ Vocabulary With Morphemes – Word Roots

Phonograms or word families are not the only letter patterns worth teaching. Morphemes are word parts or patterns that not only represent a consistent or regular occurring sound, they also represent meaning and, as such, are well worth teaching if your goal is to expand students’ vocabularies or knowledge of word meanings. Another common name for morphemes is roots. Some of the most common morphemes in English derive from Latin and Greek. The logic behind the use of morphemes in reading instruction is the same as with teaching phonograms—knowledge of one morpheme can help students unlock the meaning to many words—in some cases over 100 English words.

            The numerical prefix bi– can be found in English words such as bifocals, biplane, bicycle, biannual, bipartisan, and many more. Similarly, base word roots, morphemes that are the foundation of words, help form the meaning of many English words. Knowing that ject- means “to throw” can help students determine or affirm the meaning of words such as: eject, inject, object, object, reject, interject, conjecture, and many more. Indeed, it has been estimated that the word root trac/tract, meaning pull, draw, drag, is found in over 140 English words! Moreover, most of our multisyllabic words in English as well are academic words (think science, social studies, mathematics) are made of morphemic word roots.

            Again, the logic then suggests that teaching a limited number of morphemes or word roots can give students patterns that will allow them to determine the meaning (and sound representation) to a near-limitless number of English words. Then, teaching morphemic word patterns should be seen as the natural follow-up to teaching phonemic word families or phonograms. (Find out more about teaching word roots in my blog article: “A Little Latin (and Greek), and a Whole Lot of English Building Vocabulary with Word Roots,” on the Robb Review – https://therobbreviewblog.com/uncategorized/a-little-latin-and-greakk/

Teach Reading With Poetry: Use Textual Language Patterns

Beyond individual word patterns, we also have language patterns that exist at the text level. Of course, when talking about teaching reading to children, I am referring to poetry for children. Poetry, and I’m including song lyrics as well, follow highly predictable patterns in terms of rhythm and rhyme. That is why poetry, especially poetry and rhymes for children, is so easy to learn. Nearly all children in primary grades can easily recite a plethora of nursery rhymes, poems, and song lyrics. How many of us, as adults, can easily recall song lyrics and poems that we last heard years ago? The textual patterns make them easy to remember.

            When working with younger readers, we want them to meet success in learning to read. What better way to ensure success to learn to read poems or other patterned texts each day or two. Of course, such learning requires repetition, and repetition (repeated reading of actual texts is a hallmark of reading fluency development.

            One more thing that’s worth noting about poetry for children: most poems rhyme. Returning to what I had previously mentioned, words belonging to particular word families (phonograms or rimes) generally rhyme. So, the use of poetry as a way to develop fluency and success in reading connected text can also be sued as a wonderful way to follow up word family phonics instruction. After learning the –eep word family and associated words, your students can read, reread, and eventually perform Little Bo Peep. Instruction with the –ick and –ock word families can be followed with Hickory Dickory Dock.

            In Kent State’s Camp Read-A-Lot reading clinic, where young students make remarkable progress in reading in as little as five weeks of instruction, our goal is for students to learn to read something well each and every day of instruction. And that something is usually a poem or a song. Moreover, the poems and songs that students learn are usually tied to the phonemic word families they are also learning.

            Sometimes our teachers/clinicians are unable to find a poem along with a word family under instruction. In such cases, the clinicians write their own poems. One added benefit of poetry is that the patterns in poetry can easily be parodied to write new poems that follow the patterns of already-known poems. For example, the nursery rhyme “Diddle Diddle Dumpling My Son Jon” was rewritten by a clinician to reinforce the –ag word family:

                        Diggle daggle dumpling, Aggie and Mag

Had a dog, and his name was Tag

Tag had a tail that would wiggle and wag

Diggle daggle dumpling, Agnes and Mag.

Imagine the sense of accomplishment Taylor felt as he stood in front of classmates and family members to perform his own poem. Teaching and learning doesn’t get any better than that!

            Find out more about teaching and using poetry in my blog article: “Why Poetry, Let Me Count the Ways,” on the Robb Review: https://therobbreviewblog.com/?s=poetry

References and Resources

Fry, E. (1998).  The most common phonograms.  The Reading Teacher, 51, 620-622.

Harrison, D., Rasinski T.V., & Fresch, M. (2022). Partner Poems & Word Ladders for Building Foundational Literacy Skills: Grades K-2 and 1-3. New York: Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R. & Newton, E. (2020). Building Vocabulary with Greek and Latin Roots: A Professional Guide to Word Knowledge and Vocabulary Development (2^nd ed.). Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing. (Professional Development Book)

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2019). Building Vocabulary from Word Roots. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing. (Vocabulary Instruction Kit for Grades K to 11).