it means. Help students identify figurative words and phrases and help them recognize how they help create a picture in a reader’s mind. Note that any attention given to figurative language (similes, metaphors, alliteration, idioms, and onomatopoeia) in grades K–2 should be done with a light and playful touch.
Give students opportunities to illustrate idiomatic figures of speech, such as “butterflies in my stomach” and “a fish out of water.” The resulting illustrations might be compiled into a book.
To have students describe how words and phrases supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song:
Have students look back through a text that has been read aloud or shared to identify words and phrases they find interesting or pleasurable, and ask them to explain why. They might say that they like the way a word sounds or that they’ve never heard it before. We want students to learn to love words and enjoy distinguishing shades of meaning.
Post a running list of onomatopoeic words (words like whoosh, clang, click, burp) since onomatopoeia shows up frequently in children’s books. These kinds of words are fun, and children can easily incorporate them into their own writing to give it voice.
Help students recognize that when we want to highly exaggerate or emphasize something, we often use hyperbole. For example, the phrase “I’ve told you a million times not to do that” means I’ve told you repeatedly.
Select alliterative poems and rhymes, such as “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” to read with students. Help them see how repeating the same sounds at the beginnings of words is similar to rhyming words at the ends of lines of poetry.
To help your English language learners, try this:
Meet with a small group of students for interactive read-aloud or shared reading to allow them to talk about words whose meanings they don’t know and for you to help them in an intimate setting.
Facilitate conversation about words students love or find interesting. Create a chart on which to record these words.
Developmental Debrief:
The best way to help students recognize the important role that word meanings play in reading and comprehension is to read aloud to them at least once a day. Reading a text aloud multiple times provides implicit vocabulary instruction. By hearing words used in the context of a story, informational text, poem, or song, children will often be able to determine their meaning. At the very least it might be their first exposure to a word, upon which they can build. In addition, when reading aloud be sure to use facial and vocal expression and body language, and give brief explanations of what some of the unfamiliar words mean. It’s equally important to provide explicit vocabulary instruction, in which you decide beforehand which words you will teach directly through planned and purposeful experiences before, during, and after reading a text.
Notes
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
Grades K–2 Common Core Reading Standard 4: Academic Vocabulary: Key Words and Phrases
Alliteration: Repetition of the initial consonant sound in words that are close to one another (e.g., “wonderful wacky words”).
Figurative meanings: Figures of speech (or figurative language) are often-colorful ways of saying something that help create a picture in the mind of the reader. For K–2 students the most common figures of speech are metaphor, simile, and personification. A metaphor compares two things that are not typically associated with each other (e.g., “That room is an oven”). A simile typically uses the word like or as when making a comparison (e.g., “A blue whale’s skin is as slippery as a bar of soap”). Personification involves attributing human characteristics to something that is nonhuman (e.g., “The wind howled”).
Interpret: This is best understood as a way of explaining what an author wrote using more accessible, familiar language for those who lack experience with or knowledge of the subject or type of text.
Technical meaning: In general this term relates to words with specialized meanings that are specific to a topic or subject being investigated. For K–2 students we can narrow this down to mean domain-specific words that typically occur in texts related to a specific content area, such as rocks and minerals (igneous) or weather (cumulus).
Tone: When thinking of tone, think about tone of voice. The formal tone of the U.S. Constitution matches the work’s importance and subject; the informal tone of a literary text signals the relationship between the individuals and reveals the character of the speaker.
Notes
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
Planning Page
Standard: ___________________________________________________________________________________
The standards guide instruction; they do not dictate it. So as you plan lessons remember you aren’t teaching the standards, but instead are teaching students how to read, write, talk, and think through well-crafted lessons that draw from the pedagogy embedded within them. Engaging lessons often have several ELA standards within them and integrate reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language.
Grades K–2 Common Core Reading Standard 5: Craft and Structure
Standard 5: Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
Literature
K Students recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems).
1 Students explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range
