3 Sample Literacy Strategies
(Click on each underlined title for more information.)
Read the following sentences aloud. Read the first part of each sentence in a "normal" voice; read the second part using a "character" voice as described in the first part of the sentence. You will need to change the tone of your voice!
When I lift my chin, I speak like strong iron, “I command you to spin all of this straw into golden thread, if your value you life!”
When I clench my teeth, I speak like a knotted rope, “I am sick and tired of letting down my long hair. Get a ladder!”
When I hold my nose, I speak with a twang, “Life in a pumpkin shell is full of pungent, putrid smells.”
When I let my arms hang low, I yammer like a troll, “Daaaa, say, who’s that a tramping on my bridge?”
Use 5 parts of speech to build a poem about a favorite character from literature.
Use this pattern:
1 article (a, an, the) + 1 noun (name of a character)
1 adjective + 1 conjunction + 1 adjective
1 verb + 1 conjunction + 1 verb
1 adverb
1 noun that relates to the name in the first line
The Stonecutter, Poor but imaginative—
Cleaves and calls
Desperately—
Fool.
3. Vocabulary Development: Using Higher Order Thinking to Discover, Learn, and Remember Words (from
Look Out! Letters Alive, Pieces of Learning, 1999)
Look at the picture of the "B's"; how many words can you think of that start with the letter "B" and that descrbe something about the picture? Try to think of at least 25.
Examples: bold, big, bent, bottom, black. . .
After you have made your list of "B" words, can you identify what parts of speech they are? (Some words might be more than one part of speech.)
Can you use at least 3 of your "B" words in one sentence?
2. Parts of Speech Poetry: Shining Words for Bright Ideas (from 