The Great Poetry Race

Poetry is a genre of reading and writing that the kids seems to love.  Teachers don’t seem to love teaching it, but the kids go crazy for it.  Especially for the funny poems of poets like Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein. Gigglepoetry.com and poetry4kids.com are great places to print some poems from for your students.  Poetry is a fun way for your students to practice their fluency.  It provides an opportunity to teach into phrasing, punctuation and expression.  

In honor of April being Poetry month, hold The Great Poetry Race with your students!  Here’s how it works. Your students pick their poem of choice, or you as the teacher can assign students a poem.  Your students’ goal is to read their poem as many times as they can that week (or however many days you decide the “race” will last).  This works way better if not everyone in your class has the same poem for two reasons.  The first is because I am willing to bet your classroom is full of different reading levels and so not everyone will read the same poem well.  The second reason is that it is likely that during the race your students will want to read their poems to their classmates.

While your students are racing all around that week reading their poem to anyone and everyone they can, they are also collecting signatures as proof that they read their poem to the people they say the did. In the form I created, I also left a space for the listeners to make a comment about the reading or the poem.  This is a sneaky way for you student to get some feedback on their fluency.  Mostly, they will get compliments on things they are doing well, but hey, a little positive reinforcement helps learning and self-esteem all at once!

My students absolutely loved the competition aspect of the race and got them amped up to read and share poetry.  I awarded my students for the most signatures, most compliments, best expression and other categories as well.  We did it all throughout the month of April with different poems each week and even competed against another class.  My kids were sad on May 1 when I said this was over.  Get your kids excited and motivated to read with this fun and exciting activity!

Download everything you need for The Great Poetry Race here.