A focus on literary skills at the postteaching 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 fol- lowing 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.