Stomp to the Rhythm

The National Literacy Strategy has helped us to raise standards for pupils with learning difficulties. The Inclusive Readers Series is designed to support teachers in this area by providing attractive, stimulating and appropriate reading materials for children with moderate or severe learning difficulties across the 7-11 age range. It includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and could help to support a multi-sensory approach to learning. The Inclusive Readers Series aims to do more than develop children's reading and writing - it aims to enable readers to extend their knowledge and understanding, to develop a fascination with language, to explore a range of emotions and, where appropriate, to help them to deal with difficult issues. The books represent positively many aspects of disability, and reflect the cultural diversity of society. Each pack consists of a 16-page A3 (11-2/3 x 16-1/2) big book, with full color illustrations; a pull-out section of characters and images from the text to cut out and laminate for use in follow-up work; a teachers' book with half-term and weekly plans, plus activities for pupils at different levels; and photocopiable differentiated versions of the text at four levels (P5-6, P7-1C and 1C-2A) for use with individual pupils - the lowest level using words with symbols. The Stomp to the Rhythm Big Book, written by Maggie Walker and illustrated by Suzi Woollatt, asks, Can you shake your dancing feet like the Mighty Monkey? Make a fat face, a dog face or a cat face? Creep on velcroed toes with a goggle-eyed gecko? Stomp to the rhythm and bomp to the beat? Let the poems show you how! This is an anthology of poems selected for Year 3, and is designed to encourage creative and expressive movement. They are action verses, with strong visual elements to encourage creative and expressive movement. Suggested activities in the Stomp to the Rhythm Teachers' Book, by Maggie Walker, Val Davis and Ann Berger, include using imagination, the sound of words, pattern and rhythm. As well as experiencing the delight and joy of poetry, pupils have an opportunity to play with words, rhymes and rhythms.