Transcript

I read with my students every day. From the moment they walk into the classroom and make their way over to the carpet, till the end of the day when they're packing up their bags and saying goodnight Mrs. Gambino. We start off the day with taking attendance and the students read each other's names. We do read-alouds on a daily basis, where I might use one of the big books. I sit and read with the students in a small group setting. We do poetry and songs and chants throughout the day. And my favorite part is having parents come into the classroom and reading with the students in small group settings. A fun and exciting way for students to read to me, is we'll take our beginning readers, they'll choose a special finger from my reading box, and what they'll do is they'll use this finger, which has magical power, and help them read the story. It creates confidence and excitement and engages the student to want to read to the teacher.

A fun and exciting way to introduce poetry to my students is to first read it in a regular teacher voice. This poem is called I'm a Little Snowman, it goes like this "I'm a little snowman, short and fat. Here are my mittens, here is my hat. When the sun comes out, I melt away. See you next year, on a snowy day. The second time we will read this poem I'll change the voice and I'll say "now we're going to read it with our baby voice. Here we go, get ready. I'm a little snowman, short and fat. Here are my mittens, here is my hat." I'll then change it and say, "now we're going to sing it with our dinosaur voices", and the children will be allowed at this point to be loud and speak in a powerful voice. "Here we go. I'm a little snowman, short and fat. Here are my mittens, here is my hat."