Perfect Poems for Teaching Sight Words

Perfect Delightful Poems, Research-Based Lessons, and Instant Activities That Teach the Top High-Frequency Words BY CURRiC LB 1574.5 E44 2005 C:3 PEBORAH ELLERMEYER AMO JUDITH I©W1IL ISBN 0-43T 57 40 - fl 515TC1> E AN 78043 574044 M SCHOLASTIC Perfect Po«ms ^Teaching Sight Words Delightful Poems, Research-Based Lessons, and Instant Activities That Teach the Top High-Frequency Words By Deborah Ellermeyer and Judith Rowell New York • Toronto • London • Auckland • Sydney Mexico City • New Delhi • Hong Kong • Buenos Aires Teaching - UJKU.C IB c, To my father, Paul Sanko, with love and best wishes —D.E To my husband, Dick, with love —J.R Cover art and design by Kathy Massaro Interior design by Solutions by Design, Inc Illustration by James Hale ISBN: 0-439-57404-8 Copyright © 2005 Deborah Ellermeyer and Judith Rowell Published by Scholastic Inc All rights reserved Printed in the U.S.A 10 40 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 I Contents i I I Introduction.4 [ v POEM SIGHT WORD FOCUS We Are Opposites Antonyms 14 Color With Me Color Words 19 Counting Circus Number Words 26 The Little, Little Man Synonyms 32 I’m All Mixed Up Homophones 37 All About You Question Words 41 My Busy Day Verbs 45 Me, You, and Them Personal Pronouns 49 My Game Prepositions 53 Two Funny, Little Red Apples Adjectives 58 Double Silly Same Double-Consonant Words 61 Terrific Tongue Twisters Same Beginning Sound Words 64 What Am I? Dolch Nouns and Adjectives 69 Clap Your Hands Counting Syllables 73 Word Families Word Family Words 77 One Word Out Word Categories 81 I Have a Little Secret Words Within Words 85 May, Bea, Ike, Joe, and Beulah Words With Long Vowel Sounds 92 Singing Ducks Words With Short Vowel Sounds 99 Neighborhood Noise This, That, These, Those PAGE 104 Welcome to Perfect Poems S for Teaching Sight Words' ight words and poetry are a winning combination! Sight words—words that are recognized at a glance, without decoding—are key to reading success, and the rhythm and rhyme of poetry is a natural invitation into reading This book brings the two together into one valuable resource The poems within this book feature words from the Dolch list, a widely recognized list of sight words (see page 10) The Dolch list is comprised of the 220 most frequently encountered words in books that children read The Dolch list of the 95 most commonly encountered nouns (see page 12) expands the scope of the first list Not only does each poem provide an authentic context for children’s experiences with sight words, the poems and companion activities also present an opportunity to introduce children to specific elements of language such as parts of speech, word families, and more This gives children an opportunity to learn the words in a meaningful context as well as examine them in isolation (Though each lesson indicates a particular element of language you may not be labeling yet for children, such as antonyms, children will be exploring the language concept at their own developmental level and using it as an organizing principle For instance, even if you use the term antonyms, children will still be developing their understanding of opposites.) In addition, many of the activities use the sight words from the poems as springboards to vocabulary building, introducing new words which are not sight words but fit into the target category 1»