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BY LEE COGHLAN
Rappahannock News Special Writer
A mixed-up Martian from Mars,
Came to earth for spaghetti in jars.
As he zoomed down the street,
A parade he did meet,
With a king and three movie stars.
Do not be surprised to come home from work and hear your child chanting this. Kathryn A.Gangel, a third grade teacher for Page County, has been writing poems for her students to read orally in unison, called “choral reading”.
The poems reinforce reading, spelling, and memorization skills because they contain rhythm, rhyme, and repetition which act as learning tools for the students. And the kids love it. When Mrs. Gangel gives out quizzes about the contents of the “chant” the returned quizzes usually have lines from the poem written on the test. Due to the rhythm, rhyme and repetition, the child is able to memorize the chant and answer the question.
Mrs. Gangel has put her poems into workbooks with puzzles, crosswords, fill in the blanks, patterns, secret codes, and illustrations, that give the children exercises to reinforce vocabulary, comprehension and spelling.
Mrs. Gangel recalls the beginnings of choral reading in her classroom, “I found a poem for my class one day. We did a choral reading together, which the kids loved. I said I’d go get a book out of the library with more poems. They have to have rhythm and flow like a song. When I went to the library, I couldn’t any one selection of poems that was suitable for choral reading. So I wrote my own as I had promised the kids I would have one for tomorrow.”
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