Year 1/2 Poetry Unit Overview

Through reading, writing and presenting poetry, students develop creative and critical thinking
abilities.
This unit will promote fluency in reading through the exploration of and experimentation with
poetry.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view and interpret
spoken, written and multimodal texts designed to entertain and inform. These include rhyming
verse and poetry.

Year 1 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 1, students understand the different purposes of texts. They make
connections to personal experience when explaining characters and main events in short texts.
They identify that texts serve different purposes and that this affects how they are organised.

They describe characters, settings and events in different types of literature.

Students read aloud, with developing fluency. They read short texts with some unfamiliar

vocabulary, simple and compound sentences and supportive images. When reading, they use
knowledge of the relationship between sounds and letters, high-frequency words, sentence
boundary punctuation and directionality to make meaning. They recall key ideas and recognise
literal and implied meaning in texts. They listen to others when taking part in conversations,
using appropriate language features and interaction skills.

Year 2 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of year 2, students understand how similar texts share characteristics by identifying
text structures and language features used to describe characters and events, or to
communicatee factual information.
They monitor meaning and self-correct using knowledge of phonics, syntax, punctuation,
semantics and context.
They listen for and manipulate sound combinations and rhythmic sound patterns.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

They accurately spell words with regular spelling patterns and spell words with less common
long vowel patterns, They use punctuation, and write words and sentences legibly using
unjoined upper-and lower-case letters.
They use knowledge of a wide variety of letter-sound relationships to read words of one or
more syllables with fluency. They identify literal and implied meaning, main ideas and
supporting detail

Activating Prior Knowledge/Introduction to Poetry

Learning Intention:
 Year 1s are learning to understand patterns of repetition and contrast in different forms of
poetry.
 Year 1s are learning to listen to, recite and perform poems, chants and songs, imitating and
inventing sound patterns including alliteration and rhyme.
Year 2s are learning to identify, reproduce and experiment with rhythmic, sound word
patterns, chants and songs.

This lesson is designed to introduce the unit by activating students’ prior knowledge about
poetry. The lesson will help solidify to students the purpose of poetry and the unique way that
poems are structured.
Diagnostic data to be collected.
Lesso Year 1 Curriculum Links Year 2 Curriculum Links
Text Structure and Organisation: Examining Literature
n1
o Students will understand patterns of o Identify, reproduce and experiment with
repetition and contrast in different forms of rhythmic, sound word patterns in poems, chants
poetry (ACEL1448). and songs (ACELT592).
Examining Literature: Interpreting, analysing and evaluating
o Students listen to, recite and perform o Use comprehension strategies to build literal and
poems, chants, rhymes and songs, imitating inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by
and inventing sound patterns including drawing on growing knowledge of contexts,
alliteration and rhyme (ACEL1585). language and visual features and print and
Interpreting, analysing and evaluating multimodal text structures (ACELY1670).
o Use comprehension strategies to build
literal and inferred meaning about key
events, ideas and information in texts that
they listen to, view and read by drawing on
growing knowledge of context, text
structures and language features
(ACELY1660).
Lesso Exploring Rhyme Through Music
n 2 Learning Intention:
 We are learning to identify and make words that rhyme.
 Year 1s: Making rhyming words with blends and two syllable words.
 Year 2s: Making rhyming words with different letter combinations that sound the same e.g.
‘maybe’ and ‘baby’.
This lesson is designed for students to explore and have fun with rhyme.
 Year 1 Curriculum Links
Examining Literature:
o Students listen to, recite and perform poems,
chants, rhymes and songs, imitating and
inventing sound patterns including alliteration
and rhyme (ACEL1585).
Phonics and Word Knowledge
o Manipulate phonemes in spoken words by
addition, deletion and substitution
(ACELA1457).
o Use short vowels, common long vowels,
consonant digraphs and consonant blends
when writing and blend these to read single
syllable words (ACELA1458).
o Understand how to spell one and two syllable
words with common letter patterns
(ACELA1778).
Fidget Spinner Rhyming
Year 2 Curriculum Links
Examining Literature
o Identify, reproduce and experiment with
rhythmic, sound word patterns in poems,
chants and songs (ACELT592).
Phonics and Word Knowledge
o Orally manipulate more complex sounds in
spoken words through knowledge of blending
and segmenting sounds, phoneme deletion and
substitution (ACELA1471).
o Understand how to use knowledge of digraphs,
long vowels, blends and silent letters to spell
one and two syllable words (ACELA1471).
o Understand that a sound can be represented by
various letter combinations (ACELA1825).

Learning Intention:
 We are learning to identify and make words that rhyme.
 We are learning to identify the rhyming structure of a poem.
Lesso This lesson, students will explore rhyming patterns and structures.
n3 Year 1 Curriculum Links Year 2 Curriculum Links
Examining Literature: Examining Literature
o Students listen to, recite and perform o Identify, reproduce and experiment with
poems, chants, rhymes and songs, imitating rhythmic, sound word patterns in poems, chants
and inventing sound patterns including and songs (ACELT592).
alliteration and rhyme (ACEL1585).
Playing with poems
Learning Intention:
 We are learning to create a poem following a scaffolded structure.
Formative assessment will be collected.
Year 1 Curriculum Links Year 2 Curriculum Links
Examining Literature: Examining Literature
o Students listen to, recite and perform o Identify, reproduce and experiment with
Lesso
poems, chants, rhymes and songs, imitating rhythmic, sound word patterns in poems, chants
n4
and inventing sound patterns including and songs (ACELT592).
alliteration and rhyme (ACEL1585). Phonics and Word Knowledge
Phonics and Word Knowledge o Understand how to use knowledge of digraphs,
o Use short vowels, common long vowels, long vowels, blends and silent letters to spell one
consonant digraphs and consonant blends and two syllable words (ACELA1471).
when writing and blend these to read single
syllable words (ACELA1458).
Lesso Exploring Alliteration
n5 Learning Intention:
 We are learning to use alliteration in our writing.

This lesson will introduce another poetic device known as alliteration. This lesson is designed
 for students to be as creative and silly as they like by using alliteration in their writing.
Year 1 Curriculum Links Year 2 Curriculum Links
Interpreting, analysing and evaluating Interpreting, analysing and evaluating
o Use comprehension strategies to build o Use comprehension strategies to build literal and
literal and inferred meaning about key inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by
events, ideas and information in texts that drawing on growing knowledge of contexts,
they listen to, view and read by drawing on language and visual features and print and
growing knowledge of context, text multimodal text structures (ACELY1670).
structures and language features
(ACELY1660).
Recreating a Familiar Poem
Learning Intention:
 We are learning to re-create a short and simple familiar rhyming story as a whole class (for
a particular audience – year 2).

Lesso This lesson will bring together all the learning that students have acquired about poetry to
n6 create a short and simple poem as a class.
Year 1 Curriculum Links Year 2 Curriculum Links
Examining Literature: Examining Literature
o Students listen to, recite and perform poems, o Identify, reproduce and experiment with
chants, rhymes and songs, imitating and rhythmic, sound word patterns in poems,
inventing sound patterns including alliteration chants and songs (ACELT592).
and rhyme (ACEL1585).
Practicing & Performing Poetry
Learning Intention:
 Year 1s are learning to understand patterns of repetition and contrast in different forms of
poetry.
 Year 1s are learning to listen to, recite and perform poems, chants and songs, imitating and
inventing sound patterns including alliteration and rhyme.
Year 2s are learning to identify, reproduce and experiment with rhythmic, sound word
Lesso patterns, chants and songs.
n7&
8 We are practicing our fluency and expression by reading and presenting a popular rhyming
story to the class.

To conclude our unit on poetry, we will present a puppet show from 6 popular rhyming stories.
Summative assessment to be collected.
 Year 1 Curriculum Links Year 2 Curriculum Links
Examining Literature: Examining Literature
o Students listen to, recite and perform o Identify, reproduce and experiment with
poems, chants, rhymes and songs, imitating rhythmic, sound word patterns in poems, chants
and inventing sound patterns including and songs (ACELT592).
alliteration and rhyme (ACEL1585). Interacting with Others
Lesso Interacting with Others o Use interaction skills including initiating
o Engage in conversations and discussion, topics, making positive statements and
n8
using active listening behaviours, voicing disagreement in an appropriate
showing interest and contributing ideas, manner, speaking clearly and varying tone,
informative and questions volume and pace appropriately
(ACELY1656). (ACELY1789).
o Make short presentations using some o Rehearse and deliver short presentations on
introduced text structures and language familiar and new topics (ACELY1667).
(ACELY1657).