oh the crocodile went to the dentist

in my classroom we use lots of music and stories/poems on tape. today we listened to 'green eggs & ham' in honor of st. patrick's day. the kids loved the rhythm that this particular reader used, and we had fun listening to it. we listen to shel silverstein, who was not only a gifted poet, but also was socially conscientious and musically talented. i think the rhyming and the rhythm draws the kids in, and research has shown that readers use letter chunks that they find in rhymes. if you teach a person a word like "take" and then compare that to "sake, fake, rake, make, bake..." they will pick up how to read the -ake cluster. it's funny how kids don't realize when words rhyme, they just know it sounds funny or cool. and if kids don't learn to read or write from listening to these poems & songs, what have they lost? they've still had fun.