Teddy Bear Recitation

Last March, my parents gave Pamela, a stuffed animal lover, this cute teddy bear. She figured out really quickly that the bear will recite prayers and poems if you press its paws. Pamela loved the added bonus of the bear that had verbal stims like her! LOL! I noticed that she learned these poems and prayers and, when she recites, she sounds exactly like the bear. The same voice. The same cadence. The same pitch! Here are comparisons of the bear and Pamela reciting the same poem:

Teddy Bear


Pamela


When I first got into Charlotte Mason homeschooling, all efforts to teach Pamela to recite poems failed. Two years ago, I figured out that blending copywork and studied dictation with recitaiton enabled her to recite poems correctly! We worked through lots of poetry by A. A. Milne and other beloved poets. We started school on August 18 and I decided to see if she could handle recitating without the scaffolding of visual and written work. I picked a poem called Singing Time by Rose Fyleman (a lover of all things faerie) from the book Poems and Prayers for the Very Young. I deliberately choose a very easy poem from a very easy book to build a sense of confidence in Pamela.

Singing Time
I wake in the morning early
And always, the very first thing,
I poke out my head and I sit up in bed
And I sing and I sing and I sing.

Here is how I scaffolded this:

• I had Pamela read it aloud a few times each session.
• We backchained the learning of this poem by starting off with the last two lines.
• I said the end and then she said the end. We went back and forth a few times every session.
• Sometimes we practiced while rocking so that she can learn to feel the rhythm of poetry.

In the following clip is the very first time we practiced going back and forth with the poem on August 18. Then you see us ten days later doing a rocking session and Pamela's final recitation. At the end, all I did was smile and you can see how she reads my face at the end and then smiles brightly too!

First Day/Rockin' Recitation
Ten Days Later