Alright y’all, besides classroom management, ELA instruction is my favorite subject to discuss! I am by no means an expert and always have growing to do, but it is the subject that I enjoy to teach the most. This year I started implementing introducing reading skills through chants + movement! Let me tell you, I have seen a huge improvement in my students’ retention of reading skills throughout the year and their ability to implement the strategies effectively!
I was inspired to begin this method of teaching from Whole Brain Teaching. While I do not use their complete strategies, I did adapt their strategies to meet the needs of my students and to what fits my teaching style. Because let’s be honest, we are all different and the whole brain teaching strategy isn’t for everyone.
I have created simple, but effective posters for each reading skill that contains:
- Reading Skill
- Chant
- Sentence Stems
- Some other information
They contain just enough information that my students can refer to them often and easily!
How I introduce
To introduce the skill I simply print off my poster & have it displayed in my library area. I pull up the PowerPoint so it is front and center for my students to see. I talk about the skill we are learning, describe it and then read through the chant with my students repeating each line after me.
After we have talked about it, my students come up with actions for the chant. They usually have already thought of some great movements while we are reading through the chants because they know this step is coming next! I take student ideas and we decide as a class what actions would help us remember the skill and chant the best.
Finally, we practice the chant together and then move on! This whole process is my mini-lesson for the first day and usually lasts about 15 minutes.
The following day I start having student leaders lead our chant in front of the classroom. It is so fun to see my students become brave enough to lead our class throughout the year and see them become leaders in front of their classmates. This is how we begin our literacy block before we move into our mini-lesson for the rest of the week! It is the perfect way to generate background knowledge from students!
Reading Posters
This by no means replaces the full instruction of a strategy or skill, but it adds a little movement and helps students remember key vocabulary words & skills they need to become better readers!
You can grab my Reading Posters pack here! Each poster has an accompanying PowerPoint slide, a response page that you can use for future lessons or students can use for independent reading time! If you want to see more of my sweet students leading the chant, head over to my Instagram page and search my feed or find the story highlight “Reading Skills”! Let me know if you have any suggestions for skills that I should add to the pack!
Happy Teaching!
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