A focus on literary skills at the
post-teaching stage
I have noticed that songs create opportunities
for a smooth transition from singing and
listening to reading and literacy exercises. To
foster reading and literacy skills at the postteaching
stage, you may carry out the following
activity. I will illustrate two examples,
again using the “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and
Toes” song.
• The teacher makes sets of cards with a
key word from the song on each (e.g.,
mouth, head) and then cuts each card
in half, with a part of the word on each
half. Next, the teacher asks the students
to work in pairs and reconstruct the
words by finding and putting together
the two halves correctly. Once the students
finish the activity, the teacher asks
the pairs to show and read aloud the
words that they have reconstructed.
• Alternatively, using the structure “I
have _____,” the teacher writes different
sentences on cards (e.g., “I have
two eyes”) and cuts each sentence into
pieces with a word on each piece. Then,
the teacher asks the students to form
small groups and gives the pieces for a
different sentence to each group. Next,
the teacher asks the groups to construct
a sentence by using the words they
have. Finally, each group is asked to
read its sentence aloud.