Teachers
Bridge gives EAL/D and literacy-intervention students levelled poems with comprehension scaffolds, instead of skipping verse. Each ladder runs original → gloss → the learner's own retell → say aloud, then two check questions. No accounts, no sign-in.
In class (five prompts)
- Read the line aloud twice. Which word is the loudest?
- Cover the gloss. Can you say the line's meaning in your own words?
- Write your retell line using five or fewer hard words.
- Swap retells with a partner. Can you find their line's original?
- Read your retell aloud. Does it sound finished?
From the shared prompt bank
- Keep only the nouns. What picture is left?
- Keep only the words that feel like a feeling. What mood does the page have?
- Black out everything except one sentence. Read it aloud. Does it still make sense?
- Keep exactly fourteen words. Make a sonnet-shaped poem.
- Black out every word that appears in the first line. What survives?
Safety in school use
- Every retell is link-only by default. Only its link reaches it.
- The gallery is off by default: poem pages never push learners toward it. Opt a class in deliberately, and every piece still waits for a reviewer.
- The automatic screen refuses gallery opt-ins carrying slurs, links, e-mail addresses or phone numbers. A refused retell stays on its link.
- Use first names or initials only — never full names. Any reader can report a public retell; a report sends it back to review.
Printable worksheet
Print this page: navigation and buttons are hidden on paper.
The Swing — Robert Louis Stevenson
1. How do you like to go up in a swing,
2. Up in the air so blue?
3. Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
4. Ever a child can do!
5. Up in the air and over the wall,
6. Till I can see so wide,
7. Rivers and trees and cattle and all
8. Over the countryside—
9. Till I look down on the garden green,
10. Down on the roof so brown—
11. Up in the air I go flying again,
12. Up in the air and down!
The Owl and the Pussy-cat (stanza I) — Edward Lear
1. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
2. In a beautiful pea-green boat:
3. They took some honey, and plenty of money
4. Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
5. The Owl looked up to the stars above,
6. And sang to a small guitar,
7. “O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
8. What a beautiful Pussy you are,
9. You are,
10. You are!
11. What a beautiful Pussy you are!”
My Heart Leaps Up (The Rainbow) — William Wordsworth
1. My heart leaps up when I behold
2. A rainbow in the sky:
3. So was it when my life began;
4. So is it now I am a man;
5. So be it when I shall grow old,
6. Or let me die!
7. The Child is father of the Man;
8. And I could wish my days to be
9. Bound each to each by natural piety.
A Spring Song (opening) — C. J. Dennis
1. The world 'as got me snouted jist a treat;
2. Crool Forchin's dirty left 'as smote me soul;
3. An' all them joys o' life I 'eld so sweet
4. Is up the pole.
5. Fer, as the poit sez, me 'eart 'as got
6. The pip wiv yearnin' fer—I dunno wot.
7. I'm crook; me name is Mud; I've done me dash;
8. Me flamin' spirit's got the flamin' 'ump!
9. I'm longin' to let loose on somethin' rash....
10. Aw, I'm a chump!
The trial this instrument must pass
Riskiest assumption: learners engage with verse at all when prose is easier to level. Trial one poem ladder with one EAL class; kill the instrument if comprehension scores don't beat the same time spent on prose. Run it from the poems; the check questions score 0–2 per learner in the browser (nothing is stored).