Walking the Dog

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By Brian Moses — poet

This humorous poem by Brian Moses will appeal to most children from Year 1 up. The vocabulary is fun and words are easy to decode using phonics and simple word patterns. To support your use of the poem, have a selection of nursery rhymes, poetry books and posters about pets available for the children to look at.

Shared reading

Look at the poster together. What sort of text is it? How do we know?
Remind the children of reading strategies learned so far. Explain that, in this poem, rhyming words might be a good strategy to use.
Read the text together, focusing on spotting digraphs and trigraphs to work out unfamiliar words.
Emphasise the rhyming words as you read, or cover the last word in the line to see if the children can guess what the missing word is.
After reading, ask how the poem made the children feel and why. Discuss how the dog gave the family a shower.
Discuss, with speaking partners, other things the dog could have got up to on the walk. Share ideas with the class.