Poetry Academy

At times, everything is in line for a new program to begin. In the September, 2008 issue of the Reading Teacher, an article written by a Reading specialist who created and established a "Poetry Academy" in her school, appeared. I was so impressed with the simplicity of her plan and the resulting data, that I copied the article and put it aside with the hopes of trying it sometime in the future. As luck would have it, one of our Title 1 Aides had a twenty minute block of time open up. I suggested that we consider initiating a Poetry Academy with a small group of fourth graders who could benefit from fluency support and instruction. Coincidentally, all the reading specialists from our school attended the Tim Rasinski workshop last week so we were feeling very positive about the benefits of fluency instruction. After discussing the idea with administators, we got the green light and our "Poetry Academy" will begin next week.

The beauty of this concept is that it requires very little time and according to the author of the article, Lori Wolfong, the students made significant gains. Briefly, this it how it works:

• A teacher or an aide works with individual students for about 10 minutes per week.


• Instructor selects an appropriate poem and reads it aloud to the student.


• Student and instructor read the poem together.


• Instructor discusses meaning and unfamiliar vocabulary with the student.


• Student reads the poem aloud.


• Instructor provides a copy of the poem and instructs the student to practice reading it aloud to other throughout the week. Student is to have anyone who has listened to them read the poem sign off on it.


• The following week, the instructor hears the student recite the poem, tracks number of signatures, and the whole process begins again.


• At the end of a determined number of weeks, students are invited to choose some of their favorite poems and share them in an open forum that includes parents and others. It is a celebration of their participation in "Poetry Academy".

This week we will test targeted students and choose eight whom will benefit from this program. We will pre-assess using a one minute read, retelling, short comprehension test, and attitude survey. Our program will last for ten weeks. At the end of the ten weeks, we will re-assess the children to compare data. Hopefully, this intervention will result in improved fluency and comprehension for the selected group of students. Should be interesting!