Of partner poems, word ladders, and literacy skills…

Hi everyone,

Today TIM RASINSKI posted on Facebook the cover of Partner Poems and Word Ladders to Build Fundamental Literacy Skills. Scholastic Teaching Resources brought this out in two volumes in 2022.

I love working with TIM RASINSKI and MARY JO FRESCH, two of the most highly regarded authorities in the field. For these books, I worked from a list of phonograms, those small parts of speech that shape the sound of the words we use, to create poems for two or more readers. Tim added his famous word ladders to reinforce teach lesson, and Mary Jo created the wonderful activities that are making these titles favorites in classrooms around the country.

Here’s my part of the author introductions.

Hello.
I’m David, the poet. My job is to write poems that you can use with your kids. Why verse? Because it rhymes (usually) and has meter (almost always), so its structured language makes it a wonderful classroom tool for learning the poem itself and appreciating the cadence and natural beauty of our language. Research also tells us that reading as partners further encourages and strengthens
children’s reading skills. That’s why our book takes full advantage of structured language’s
special qualities by focusing on poems for two or more voices. In this book you’ll find
26 original poems, each written for partner reading. I hope you and your students enjoy
reading and playing with them as much as I loved writing them for you. I want to say how happy I am to be partnering with Tim and Mary Jo. In 2009, Tim and I published Partner Poems for Building Fluency (Scholastic Teaching Resources), and in 2013 Mary Jo and I wrote Learning Through Poetry (Shell Education), a set of five books that featured 96 poems, each inspired by a different phoneme. And now, lucky me, I get to do a book with both of them together!
DAVID L. HARRISON, Litt.D.

Here’s an example of a poem from the set. In this case, I began with the phonogram, ame, and wrote a poem for two voices. The 40 poems in these two book are enough to make nearly three trade book collections and take accordingly that much time. Teacher or not, anyone looking for more of my work can find quite a lot of it in the education books I love to do.

The Night the Great Goat Came

1st Voice  
One moonlit night
Great Goat came.
His beard was long
and red as flame.
We took one look
and knew he had
no shame.


All Together
His beard was red.
He had no shame.


2nd Voice
He smiled and said,
“I’m not to blame.
Making trouble
is my game.
Everywhere I go
is just the same.”

All Together
His beard was red.
He had no shame.
Making trouble
was his game.

1st Voice 
Sure enough
the troubles came,
with Great Goat saying,
“I’m not to blame.”
Then he’d smile
to show he had
no shame.

All Together
His beard was red.
He had no shame.
Making trouble
was his game.
Trouble started
when he came.

2nd Voice
He left at last,
the way he came—
one moonlit night,
red beard aflame.
Without a sound
Great Goat went away.

1st Voice
Where he went,
no one could say.
We jumped and clapped
and yelled, “Hooray!”
Not a soul
has seen him to this day.

2nd Voice
No one ever
took the blame.

1st Voice
We never learned
just what became

All Together
Of Great Goat
whom none could tame,
whose beard was long
and red as flame,
and making trouble
was his game,
but never, never
took the blame—
The Great Goat
who had no sense
of shame.

With permission from Partner Poems & Word Ladders for Building Foundational Literacy Skills: 1–3 © by Harrison, Rasinski & Fresch, Scholastic Teaching Solutions, 2022

New ads for new books

Hi everyone,

Here’s a new ad that Scholastic is running in ILA’s Literacy Today (October issue). This is for the paired titles that MARY JO FRESCH, TIM RASINSKI, and I worked on together. They came out in February and are off to an excellent start.

This second ad will be used in other spots. I’m eager to see both of these put to use.

https://bit.ly/3UHlNgA.

Partner Poems and Word Ladders for Building Foundational Literacy Skills

Hi everyone,

I’d like to talk a little about the two books with Scholastic that have recently reached the market. I’ve mentioned before that I wrote the poems, TIM RASINSKI wrote the word ladders, and MARY JO FRESCH created activities to further reinforce each lesson. One volume is for students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade. The other is meant for slightly more advanced kids in grades 1-3. Together, both books provide 50 poems, word ladders, and lessons. All the poems are for two or more voices.

We’ve each made videos about the intention and process for making these books. As I’ve said many times before, it was both a pleasure and a privilege to work with Tim and Mary Jo on the project. I went first because my colleagues needed the poems before they could add their own work. In the beginning, they provided me with a list of phonograms, basic word sounds such as ab, ed, ip, ot, ug, and unk. My job was to take each of these sounds and write a partner poem for young children. I began each time by making a list of words that included my target sound, such as ak.

Once I had a list of words with the same sounds, I had to find a poem somewhere in the list for at least two children to take turns reading together. In this case my list ran 29 words: back, hack, Jack, crack, snack, whack, and so on. The poem that emerged, which is shown on the cover of the book, goes like this.

1st Voice						2nd Voice

See my yak?
							That’s no yak.
I named him Jack.
							Jack’s no yak.
I love my Yak.
							Jack’s no yak.
							He has feathers
							on his back.
							Jack’s no yak. 
Good old Jack.
I love my yak.
							Jack has feathers
							on his back.
							He waddles with
							a quack, quack.
							Jack’s no yak.
Pretty feathers,
pretty back,
pretty waddle,
pretty yak!
							A yak is gray
							or brown or black.
							He has no feathers
							down his back.
							He doesn’t waddle,
							doesn’t quack.
							Jack’s no yak!
Jack’s no yak?
							No such luck.
Well then.
I love my Jack,
the duck.

(c) 2022 David L. Harrison, Scholastic Books, Partner Poems, Grades K-2

I should point out that although these books were written with the classroom teacher in mind, they can easily work for home schooling parents and kids will like the poems just for the fun of them. It’s like getting a book of twenty-five poems to play with and read with a parent or friend.

Partner Poems & Word Ladders for Building Foundational Literacy Skills

Hi everyone,

Yesterday my samples arrived for both volumes of the new Scholastic titles. I loved meeting them at last. My partners in the project, TIM RASINSKI and MARY JO FRESCH have just received their samples, too, so we’re all celebrating together.

My thanks to our editor, MARIA CHANG, and to TARA WELTY, Senior Vice President of Teaching Solutions, for turning our ideas and proposals into reality. Now we turn to the task of getting out the word that our books are out there and ready to be put to use in classrooms and homes wherever children are learning to read. As it says in the description: “Motivate young learners to develop fluency with funny short poems they can read with a partner. Follow this up with skill-building word ladders that focus on phonics and vocabulary, plus an engaging language arts mini-lesson on reading, writing, or word study, and you’ve got a comprehensive, strategic approach to teaching early literacy skills. This book provides practice in reading and writing phonograms essential for learners who are ready to expand their vocabulary and experiences with print.”

Partner Poems II finally out

Hi Everyone,

This past week during my little vacation, I had a new book come out. PARTNER POEMS & WORD LADDERS FOR BUILDING FOUNDATION LITERACY SKILLS for grades 1-3 is the companion book to (same title but for grades K-2) that was issued in February.

It’s always a pleasure and honor to work with MARY JO FRESCH and TIM RASINSKI on books for elementary classroom teachers and their students. For this pair of books for Scholastic, I wrote 50 poems for two or more voices, Tim created wonderful word ladders for each of them, and Mary Jo wrote insightful, fun ways to apply the poems and word ladders to lessons for the classroom. Special thanks to our editor, MARIA CHANG, for her guidance and knowledge throughout the process. From start to finish the development of these two books took sixteen months. We think the result is a winning combination and naturally we’re eager to see the books get out there and find their market.

Tim Rasinski

Mary Jo Fresch

I hope you’ll help us reach ort audience by putting these books to work and/or sharing this announcement with teachers you know who might. Thanks so much!