I WILL. Do Anything. I WILL. Teach. (Slam Poetry)

January 21, 2009 | Category: One House Schoolroom

Reading.

Writing.

For these skills, more than anything else. This is why I wake up every morning and stretch out, breath deep, and report to work at the dining room table.

My son can't (YET) read at grade level. He's 8 years old; he struggles to understand street signs and read basic instructions. All the testing in the world has come back with a diagnosis I already knew: he's wired a little different.

So we plug forward. Armed with everything they could give me and the wisdom of more. I implement and discard, press and retract. And? He can read more today than he could last week. Last month. Last Year.

I will use anything, anything, to help my son learn to read and write that doesn't kill his joy of either.

This week, I decided to bring slam poetry into our lives. I'm constantly trying to change things up and find new ways to make reading and writing and words interesting to Bear. Armed with Wham! It's a Poetry Jam! by Sara Holbrook from the library, Bear and I spent the non-inauguration parts of yesterday and Monday hopping about the house and performing poems.

We started with a call/return piece that he could easily read:

TO BE
I am
you see.
I am
what's me.
I am
not done.
I am
to be.

Since there's an odd number of lines, we went around this for 10 or 15 minutes a go. He acted out his words a little differently each time, sinking his teeth into it.

Then he flipped through the book looking for another one and found "Copycat" He absolutely loves this poem; it sounds just like a sibling fight. There's another called "Baseball Player," that he turns into a 1-boy play.

I have to help him read the poems the first few times, then he's able to read in time himself. Embellishing as he gets comfortable.

Times like this make me feel 12-feet tall. Just...12 feet tall. And mom to the most persistent, beautiful kid in the universe.

He woke me up asking if there was any other kids doing slam poetry out there we could listen to. I found some (most is laden with enough profanity to curl even my hair).

And this bit, which I saw on Def Poetry Jam ages ago - by Taylor Mali that made me feel like saying 'Amen'. (profanity: "ass-kicking" & G_d dam)

Stumble It!