Using Poetry with Struggling Readers

Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold, written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Rick Allen, is a collection of original poetry in a picture-book anthology. It is one of millions of poetry texts that is great for using with struggling readers.

Part of teaching reading is simply to motivate students to read. There is no better way to do that than with poetry. Try introducing a new poem to the class each day. Have them practice their fluency with poems. You might want to pick poetry that goes along with the other texts that you're reading in class. Pass out a poem and have the students follow along as you read it aloud. Read the poem chorally with you as the leader to keep the class together. If there is vocabulary that crucial to understanding the poem, discuss it when the poem is introduced. As new poems become old poems, use them to work on word skills.