Jennifer Campbell Blog Post #2 Routman Chapter 12:  You Only Have So Much Time

            My favorite section in this chapter is when Routman talks about using transitional periods as teaching times.  She writes that “Karen Sher teaches her phonemic awareness incidentally (but deliberately), often during moments spent cleaning up, walking down the hall, going to lunch, getting ready for the next activity.” She includes the example of replacing the initial sound of every word in a sentence “Pet’s po out por pecess”.  I can really see my kids getting a big kick out of this game and the /p/ sound will probably stick better than everyone just saying “puh puh puh”. 

            I often forget about these small snippets of time.  Often they are spent redirecting student behavior (dancing, turned around, or touching a friend), but perhaps using this technique could also prevent the inappropriate behavior and turn it into something more positive and meaningful.