Learning language through poetry

Originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News, December 2017; written by Ann Marie Meiresonne.

Poetry. That word alone may scare people off but I hope to encourage more families to grab some children’s poetry, verse or rhyme, and read aloud to children. Don’t be scared of poetry as it is meant to be read aloud, especially those poems written for children.

Poems are a great way to introduce love of language and word pictures to children. In poems we can experience happiness, sadness and silliness in so few words. Nonrhyming poems can also teach rhythm and beat as do rhyming ones. Mud by Flander and Swann from the book Here’s a Little Poem: A very First Book of Poetry collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters shares the experience of wallowing in the “glorious mud” that is so relatable for child and adult. This short poem introduces the word “hollow” and the joy of mud in word pictures that is fun to read aloud.

In the book Talking Baby: Helping your child discover language by Margaret MacLagan and Anne Buckley, a book dedicated to tips and tools for parents to begin teaching their infants talking skills, highly recommends rhyming poetry for infants. “The main thing (infants) will hear is the rhythm of your voice (when reading poetry aloud). And they will hear the speech melody the way your voice goes up and down as you talk.” Babies will listen closely when your voice is melodic and reading poems aloud allows the reader to play with language. “Hearing a lot of language is positively related to children producing a lot of language.”

Rhyming is important to a child as it teaches children how language works as they notice and work with the smaller sounds within the words. Experience with rhymes teaches children to anticipate the rhyming words, which in turn prepares them to make predictions. As they develop into readers this skill of anticipating the rhyme can help them to make predictions when they read. This is an important tool for the emerging reader. The author Mem Fox from the book Reading Magic even goes so far as to say rhymers will be readers.

Some great titles of poetry that I have found include: HI Koo! A Year of Seasons by Jon J Muth, The Neighborhood Mother Goose by Nina Crews, Bing Bang Boing poems and drawings by Douglas Florian, Who’s That Baby by Sharon Creech, I’ve Lost My Hippopotamus by Jack Prelutsky and of course, Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O’Neill with descriptions of colors so delightful as in “Brown is cinnamon And morning toast And the good smell of Sunday roast.” Also, don’t forget at this time of year to include in your reading aloud Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore.

Another great step in using poetry to develop good readers is to have kids write poems. In the books Kids’ Poems: Teaching Kindergartners to love writing poetry by Regie Routman and the additional title Kids’ Poems: Teaching First Graders to love writing poetry by the same author I gained the courage to write some free verse poetry with my kids when they were young. As Regie says in her Kindergarten book “the main purpose for poetry writing in kindergarten is for kids to experience success and fun in playing around with language.” This in turn encourages a love of language and word pictures to help build a foundation for kids to grow into readers.

Come check out the 811 poetry section of the Children’s library and share word pictures with the kids in your life. Sing the nursery rhymes you learned as a child. Rhyme your child’s name. Encourage your child to complete a rhyme at the end of a sentence by pausing to let them try rhyming. Explore writing poems yourself and encourage your child to write also, remembering that “unlike other forms of writing poetry writing demands less stamina and correctness,” Regie Routman.