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The purpose of teaching poetry to young children. It is important for young children to learn good poetry. There are plenty of poems written for children these days, but few fall into the category of being beautiful. A good poem should sound good, it must bring pleasure in the reciting of it due to the rich language and the rhythm. It need not portray complex ideas, but even poems that appear simple, can be good, though they were probably not simple to write! It is not necessary for a child to understand all of the vocabulary used as long as the general idea can be grasped. Understanding will come later. Find poems that your child enjoys Not all children will take delight in all poems - the key is to find good ones you can enjoy together. Read a few and see how the child responds. Which does s/he like best? Avoid jokey rhymes and ones that use baby language. As often as you can, let the child hear good poetry read aloud. Read the best you can find. This will help to educate the child's taste, to prefer the better to the worst. For very young children, you can’t go wrong by introducing them to nursery rhymes. Vary the subjects of the poems you choose as well. Help the child to understand the poem and what the poet is trying to do. Some poems sound brave and strong, others pretty, others jolly and dancing, but in each, the poet has taken great care to select the right word. What is the right word: the longest? the most unusual? No, the one that best says what the poet wants you to understand from it. Poetry and music Poetry often goes hand in hand with music. Hymns are after all poems set to music. They have a natural rhythm. Indeed a good hymn book is invaluable in the Christian home-school. Try saying a nursery rhyme and beating time to it with your finger on the table. Children will soon join in. Helping the young child to understanding poetry Once a child is used to hearing poems/nursery rhymes, then simple discussions can take place: Do you like this poem? Why/why not? Which word makes you feel...? Why do you think the poet used this word? Can you think of another word s/he could have used? Can we clap the rhythm of this line? These types of questions will help the child to learn something of the technique of poetry. Reciting poetry Reciting poems, if you can encourage your child to do so has great value. Here we are aiming for clear, distinct pronunciation. Correct speech is one of the things we need to be working on with young children. Early phonic work can go alongside this - especially work concerning the vowels. Let the child hear the difference between a carefully shaped and pronounced ‘o’ and an unclear one. Good phonics accompanies good speech. Say each vowel carefully and hear the difference between them. There should be a clear difference, but often when we talk there is hardly a difference at all. Try taking each vowel in turn on various days and putting different consonants before it: Do do do Lo lo lo Repeat each syllable on three pitches, high, middle and low. Linked to phonic work, say for example: pat, pet, pit, pot, put Ban, ben, bin, bon, bun Make sure each time that the vowel is carefully sounded. Then there is the practice of words that often trip us up: ‘acts’ where we say ‘ax’, or ‘thinking’ where we say ‘thinkin’. Pick up on the dropping of ‘t’s’ - a very common practice, but one which helps neither correct speech or spelling. Encouraging children to write verse Once children have been exposed to a fair amount of poetry then they may be asked to write short verses of their own. Now there is a danger here that we seem these days to fall into: that of letting children think that they are poets because they can write a rhymed verse. Let us remember that immature, untrained children cannot produce good literature - yet! Yes, encourage and feed the desire, but they are not poets any more than being scientists because they carried out an experiment. However it is true that the best way to learn is to study those who can and have a go yourself. After all, you cannot learn to be an artist if you never pick up a paintbrush and your first feeble attempts will one day progress into something noteworthy if you keep practising. To begin with children can work on simple rhyme exercises. You can give a short line and then they must finish it with another that rhymes. ‘I have a little mouse..’ Let the children make another to match it. They are not writing poems, but learning how poems work. To write another line, they must match the rhyme and the beat. So: There is a little mouse That lives inside my house/That runs around my house as opposed to: There is a little mouse, That runs around my bedroom in my house These are simple steps that can be built upon in later years. And so to summarise: Your choice of poetry will depend a lot upon how you have trained your own taste through good reading.
Poetry for Three to five Year olds Poems should be read to this age group - select poems with direct, colourful rhythms, humour and lively action. Nursery rhymes are excellent at this stage and are quite easy to understand. They give a good foundation in hearing rhyme. They should give room for the imagination to work. Children of this age will happily repeat verses over and over again, and these verses stand up to this repetition. Young children love choruses to join in with. Simple hymn choruses can be learnt too: Jesus loves me this I know For the Bible tells me so Little ones to him belong They are weak but He is strong Yes Jesus loves me......etc... Anna Bartlett Warner With this age group, many good poems are set to music and this helps. Let the children march to the rhythm of the poem. Whatever you do, do not adulterate this natural rhythm by listening to renditions set to pop music. Pop music by it rebellious nature has a beat which ’goes against’ the natural rhythm, often being played by a bass guitar. It counteracts the natural rhythm of the melody. This is not a good thing for children to hear and will distort their appreciation of both good poetry and good music. You do not need many poems at this age - a few that are enjoyed and repeated many times over will be sufficient. The young child will not tire of hearing them. Poetry for Fives and Sixes By now children are becoming more curious about the world around them. This works to help the become sensitive to the beauty of poetry as it tells about the things they see and experience. This matching of the poem to the child’s experiences becomes more important as children grow older. Poems about plants and animals are good at this stage. Sometimes, it may help if the child has some experience of the subject of a poem before reading the poem to him/her. For example, read a book about tigers and talk about them, maybe watch them on the computer, before reading poems about them as that way the child will better appreciate the vocabulary used to describe for example the tiger’s movements. Read the poem often, but do not to attempt to force a child to memorise one. At this age, children will pick things up by memory very quickly if they enjoy something and hear it often enough. We don’t want poetry to become a core and be resented. Some children may enjoy reading a poem out loud in public, but don’t force a child if it doesn’t want to. Read more poetry then you talk about. Make enjoyment the main emphasis rather than dissecting technique. That can come later in life. Poems are good source of material for copywork at this age. Obviously choose poems your child enjoys and select only as much as the child can cope with copying - maybe just a line, or two, or a verse to begin with.
Poetry for Sevens and Eights All that has gone before applies to this age group as well. Do not forget that as children enjoy poetry, they like to sing and dance (natural dancing not gyrating to an unnatural beat which produces unnatural movements). They also like to draw and paint and make things. All of these things can naturally flow out from the reading of poems and the doing of these activities will in turn make poetry more pleasing to them. These children can write out little poems as copy work, beautifully illustrating them. Above all, although you will want to have in mind broader aims for your poetry reading, always be led by the children. Work with them, rather than against. Be sensitive to mood and impression which can vary with young children from day to day. You may think it a good moment to enjoy poetry - they may not: but do not fall into the error of assuming that a poor response one day necessary fore-tells a poor response every day! Written with the help of 'The Practical Infant teacher', edited by P.B. Ballard: 1929
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Welcome!After studying for an Early Years Specialism degree (B.Ed. Hons), and teaching in mainstream education, I home-educated my own children, after my husband and I were persuaded of the need to take responsibility for bringing up our children 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.' (Ephesians 6:4) We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
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