Sing into Reading: the Blog

Finding and Keeping the Beat:
a class for kids under seven

We've got the beat!

In this multi-age class, Risa Beth Cohen, M.S.Ed., Creative Director of Sing into Reading, teaches about the beat. Students practice beat synchronization with their torsos, hands, and feet. Modifications can be made to this class (or any of Risa's classes)  for your age group and abilities.

In this class, Risa sings two of her original songs, "Oh, Friends, We Love You," and "Hello With One Hand." These are both zipper songs that allow students to add their own ideas, giving them a sense of ownership. In "Hello with One Hand," students suggest different parts of the body. "Oh Friends, We Love You" can be sung as a name song, "Oh____, We Love You" making the song more personal and meaningful.

Songbooks and resources are provided after classes. In Risa's songbooks, the text is color-coded with red consonants and blue vowels. (If you would like to color-code your text, you can get the...

Whether you are a teacher or a parent/ caregiver, we all want to set our children up for a peaceful school year. Making class rules or house rules together helps everyone know what the expectaions are. And when we include our children in the making of rules, this gives them a feeling of empowerment and a greater sense of buy-in.

In Responsive Classroom trainings, I learned a great way to include children in rule-making. After collecting rule suggestions from children, encourage them to make postitive rules about what we want to see, instead of rules about what we do not want. Then rules can be sorted into three buckets: our things, each other, and ourselves. Use the language your children use to make these rules. For example, the rules in one class were, "Use lovely treatment with our things. Use lovely treatment with each other. Use lovely treatment with yourself." What was the one over-arching rule? "Use lovely treatment." 

In my original song, "Be Peaceful," the rules are,...

Name Songs are important. Not only do they help children feel welcome and included, but they teach that words and letters have meaning. 

In this blog I demonstrate how to use name songs for word study, modeled writing, interactive writing, and independent writing.

Here are the name songs in this blog:

• "Round and Around is the Name of the Game"
  • This song incorporates motions that cross the midline.
• "Hickety Pickety Bumblebee" 
  • This song helps teach syllables.
• "Do You Know This Friend of Mine"
  • The melody of this song piggy-backs on "Do You Know the Muffin Man"
• "Oh, _____, We Love You"
  • You can get your own personalized recording of this song, with a customized digital book! Get your copy here.

Keep singing,

Risa

P.S. This blog first aired in the Early Childhood Global Mastermind Group. Huge thanks to Atul, Mar., and the gang.

Today is World Poetry Day!

Poetry is all about using words to evoke emotion.
Poetry is about using beautiful language.

I often talk about the importance of reading books to children daily. It is important to expose our children to poetry as well. There are many wonderful poetry books for children. My favorite is "Honey, I Love," by Eloise Greenfield.

Not only do we read poetry to our children, but we also encourage them to write it. Children are natural poets. The world, seen through a child's eyes, is poetry. The words a child uses are often poetry.

Collect your child's words. When your child says something poetic, save it. Say, "That is beautiful language." Write it down and hang onto these precious words.

As a classroom teacher, I had a poster on the wall that was titled, "Beautiful Language." When students said something beautiful, I wrote it down, hung it on the bulletin, and read it aloud to the class.

Here is one of my favorites... When my oldest (now 15) was 4, he referred to the...

I am a member of the Early Childhood Global Mastermind Group.

I recently had the pleasure of bring interviewed by Mar. Harman of Music with Mar. in a Spotlight: "Teaching Literacy Through Music." 

Mar. and Atul have graciously allowed me to repost this interview here. 

If you are an early childhood educator, be sure to check out the Early Childhood Global Mastermind Group.

In this "Edutalk" I explore recognizing our children as readers, no matter what level they read at currently. I redefine literacy, reading, and writing to a wider definition of these words. In this talk, I explain how this wider view of literacy is more encouraging for our children. 

I want to thank Noha Barrania of Edulane. Noha has given me permission to post this on the Sing into Reading blog. You can find more edutalks by other educators at https://www.facebook.com/edulaneeg

Keep singing,

Risa

Zipper songs are fantastic tools for teaching literacy. A zipper song is a "fill-in-the-blank song." I ask the children to fill in the blank, and zip their ideas right into the song. For example, my song, "Holidays are For Family" is a zipper song, since I can ask the students their favorite holidays and then sing about them.

In this blog, I talk about how to use zipper songs to teach literacy. Zipper songs can be used for modeled reading, shared reading, modeled writing, interactive writing, independent reading, and independent writing. The suggestions students make for zipper songs can easily be a springboard into word study and phonics work.

What is your favorite zipper song?

Keep singing,

Risa

Shared Reading is an important component of any balanced literacy curriculum. Shared Reading happens in the classroom when a teacher uses a bigbook or a chart with large print to read not to the class, but with the class. All members of the class "share" the reading. Shared reading mimics the laptime experience a child gets at home with a parent. Songs make terrific shared reading texts. In a classroom, songs can be printed in large print on chart paper. At home, songs can be written or printed on regular sized paper.

Over the course of a week, reading the same shared reading text daily, you may go through progressive lessons. The first day, you might do modeled reading. The next day you might leave out the last (rhyming or predictable) word of a line, allowing the child to read that word. This technique is called oral cloze. The next day, you might act out the song, or move to it. Then you might do choral reading, with everyone reading together like a chorus. For a...

What is Balanced Literacy? Balanced Literacy is a reading curriculum that includes Read Aloud, Modeled Writing, Independent Writing, Independent Reading, Shared Reading, Interactive Writing, Guided Reading, Phonics and Word Study.

I learned about Balanced Literacy at The Reading and Writing Project (TRWP) at Teachers College, Columbia University. What I do differently at Sing into Reading is that I use songs as our texts. 

Keep singing,

Risa

I am a progressive educator - to the core.

I received my M.S.Ed. in Early Childhood/Elementary Education from Bank Street College, where I learned the developmental-interaction approach. This is a constructivist approach. Teachers using a constructivist approach facilitate a learning environment where a child is encouraged to construct their own knowledge. Constructivist theory says that students do not simply soak up knowledge "like a sponge." They see children constructing knowledge as a more active task. The developmental-interactive approach distinguishes itself from other constructivist approaches by the emphasis placed on the child's emotional life. In the developmental-interactive approach, a child's emotional life and SEL (social emotional learning) skills are seen as equally important and intrinsically connected to academic skills.

I also studied at The Reading and Writing Project (TRWP) at Teachers College, Columbia University. There, I learned balanced literacy,...