Awareness of Alliteration: Enhancing Writing Through Mentor Texts

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

A writing lesson focusing on alliteration allows students to strengthen their phonemic awareness while practicing their developing writing skills. Through the use of mentor texts, students construct a definition of alliteration. Using these texts as models, students experiment with creating alliterative sentences. First, working as a class, students create an alliterative book. While studying additional mentor texts, students generate their own sentences to contribute to a class book using the beginning sounds of their names. At the conclusion of the lesson, students use the mentor texts as examples when independently creating their own alliterative books using the Alphabet Organizer interactive.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

ABC Match: This interactive tool allows students to play a memory game while matching pictures with their beginning sounds.

Alphabet Organizer: This interactive tool allows students to create their own alphabet book or alphabet chart, with several options available for differentiation.

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Ehmannn, S., & Gayer, K. (2009). I can write like that! A guide to mentor texts and craft studies for writers’ workshop, K–6. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

• Although alliteration is well understood, it is often undervalued in classroom writing.
  
  
• Alliteration is an appropriate technique to introduce to students early because of its connection to phonemic awareness.

 

Olness, R. (2005). Using literature to enhance writing instruction: A guide for K-5 teachers. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

• Pattern books are effective models as primary students often rewrite familiar texts.
  
  
• Alphabet books provide many learning opportunities, including letter-sound correspondence, phonemic awareness, visual literacy, organization, and sequencing.

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