Poems and rhymes increase students’ skills in reading, writing and narrative – in both official languages!
Teachers and students from Francis H Clergue French Immersion School treated Trustees and guests to poems and rhymes learned and presented in French at a spring Committee of the Whole meeting. They had all taken part in “From 3 to 3” – an award-winning program aimed at improving children’s language and literacy, designed by Dr. Mary Thelander.
The students were all in Junior and/or Senior Kindergarten at FH Clergue and their teachers have been trained this year in the delivery of “From 3 to 3”. The program delivers seamless, cumulative curriculum which raises children’s skill in language, narrative, reading and writing.
Starting in Kindergarten with the youngest children, the program is offered in each grade until the end of Grade 3. The three program components are the same from Kindergarten to the end of Grade 3, increasing in complexity as children achieve.
1. Through Oral Storytelling, rhyming, chaining rhyming and use of poetry promote the development of Language and Narrative. Over the course of the year the material becomes more complex building children’s attention and working memory as well as language and retell skills.
2.Children’s Literature and Social Reasoning gives teachers and librarians instruction on the selection of books that develop social reasoning. The books help to foster social reasoning development.
3.Representation and Retell shows teachers how to encourage children’s ability to represent ideas and thoughts for themselves: how to capture, categorize and recall information, events, stories, perspectives, mental states, and so on. When children represent a story for themselves they are able to recall it and use it to show their learning in pictures and words.
FH Clergue teachers enjoyed three training sessions with Dr. Thelander this year including a session earlier in April (2015) with Thelander on site in Sault Ste Marie. The sessions provided in-depth knowledge, practice and materials for classroom use. The results of their work were evident through student voice, as their students joined in reciting rhymes and poems demonstrating that they are learning and understanding new words. One young student wrote a story based on a song he has learned and enjoyed. He shared this story with the group at the meeting demonstrating his ability to recall information and retell a story.