Children
explore the world
by oberving and
manipulating. As they
investigate the nature
and parameters of
language, poetry may
give them contact
to specific elements
not found in
their everyday experience.
Poetry allows readers
to perceive objects,
experiences or emotions
in a new
and unique way.
Pupils are natural
poets because poetic
language comes naturally
to everybody, and
give us the
ability to capture
the essence of
life experience.
Children
poetry has given increasingly relevance
in the last
years. As far
back as human
documents go, there was
little genuine children
poetry written before
Dr. Isaac Watts
published his Divine
and Moral Songs
for Children in
1715. Poems have
advanced from Watts’
religious poems to children’s feelings
themes, worked for instance by
Louis Stevenson. New
developments in poetry
suggest that children
understand more themselves
and they often
express themselves more thoughtfully when writing poetry.
Moreover, rhymes are
important for language,
cognitive and physical
development.
 |
| Dr. Isaac Watts and Louis Stevenson |
Working
on language development,
poetry helps students
to learn new
words. It appears effortless,
by cause of
the stanzas structure,
but it provides
a familiar context
to unfamiliar words.
Furthermore reading rhymes
aloud helps pupils
practice pitch, voice
inflection and volume,
which deals with the physical
development. Breath coordination,
tongue and mouth
movements, are made
easier by the
musical component of
the rhyme. Reading
poems benefits on
the understanding of
when you need
to breath, and
for how long.
On
one hand, linguistic
intelligence is still
worked on cognitive
development. Students understand
that there are
words which are
similar in sound
but different meanings.
They learn what
a pattern is,
and became capable
of recognizing patterns.
On the other
hand, emotional intelligence
is a dimension
that we particularly
need to take
care about. Poetry
promotes empathy as a means
to reinforce and
deeper emotional literacy.
Also, reading poems
written by others
offers a way
for children to
make connections and
associations with the
author’s work. It
allows them to
connect with the
author’s emotions and
understand they are
not the only
ones who are
feeling such emotions.
INSPIRING STUDENTS
Myra
Cohn Livingston (1976)
suggest an approach
that expedites children’s
discovery of their own
poetic voice:
1.
Share with
pupils many poems that
will stimulate their
imagination.
2.
Give them
observation sheets on
which they can
record their own
responses, guided by the
questions “what I saw” and “what I
thought about what
I saw”. These
sheets create a bridge
between the facts observed
and
the feelings related
to the observations.
Mayra
recommends prompting pupils
to consider sounds,
smells, and tastes
in their surroundings
by bringing in
potato chips and
other noisy food.
PROMOTING EMOTIONAL
LITERACY
1.
Discuss with
children a variety
of emotions and
what they mean
to each person.
2.
Children read
a poem based
on an emotion.
3.
Discuss the
simils in the
poem.
4.
Children write
their own poem
using an emotion
they choose.
5.
Display the
children’s work.
TWO – VOICE POEM
1.
Discuss how
people can see
the same event
from different points
of view.
2.
Ask children
to work in
pairs each taking
one point of
view of a
situation.
3.
Together the
children can write
a two-voice poem.
4.
Ask each
pair to read
the poem aloud
in two voices.
5.
Discuss the
different points of
view.
OTHER ACTIVITIES:
This
websites present several
original activities to
be done with
children:
Moreover, these
are examples of
written poems activities:
 |
| Acrostic poem |
 |
| Shape poem |
Bahman, S.;
Maffini, H. (2008). Developing Children’s
Emotional Intelligence. (Pp. 63-66). New York: Continuum International
Publishing Group.
Parayno,
S.M. (1997). Children’s literature.
(Pp. 21-26). Philippines: Katha Publishing Co., Inc.
Poetry for kids. Recoverd from: http://www.poetry4kids.com/blog/activities/poetry-activities-for-kids/
Stoodt, B.
(1996). Children’s literature. Discovery
for a lifetime. (Pp. 159-163). Australia: Macmillan Education Australia Fty
Ltd.
Thanks for your attention, and ...
Rebeca Rodríguez Rodríguez | 17 de noviembre de 2013, 12:22
Hello Cris!
First of all, I would like to tell you that I have been reading all your posts since the beginning of the subject and, I wish to write you and share my opinion about your useful blog! :)
According to this post, I find it quite interesting the way you write and let readers to think and put into practice the theory in many different possibilities. Moreover, you use a structure which makes readings extremely easy to follow! As an example of this post, you start enough information about children poetry. Later, you support the theory through a practical use with easy activities to do in class.
Apart from that, I really like the way you transmit to us the importance about poetry. It is not only about its relevance in the last years but also, how students can develop different abilities and rhymes.
Great post Cris, I am waiting to read the following one. :)
Rebeca
Unknown | 18 de noviembre de 2013, 2:19
Hello Rebeca!
I am very pleased about your interest at my blog. Feedback is an important fact, because this makes people improve and gives relevance to your works.
I am absolutely agree with you, poetry needs this engaging literature genre in order to develop abilities, as you said. I know that this is also meaningful for you, because of your last post. Involving poetry in a CLIL classroom is something definitely feasible. As you suggested, poetry develops perfectly the 4Cs, making students enroll in the classroom. Hopefully, we will work this in a best way achieving students as poets’ citizens.
Thank you for your visits at my blog, I hope we can continue sharing ideas and information :)
Have a nice day,
Cristina
Unknown | 30 de noviembre de 2013, 6:43
Hello Cristina :)
I was reading your post now - for me it is very interesting from the beginning, I agree with you that children are poets naturally. I also consider interesting your information about history of children´s literature, because it should be an important part of our knowledge of children´s literature. I forgot some facts for a moment and you have reminded me them :). I like that you are writing about what for is poetry good, what does poetry promote, and what helps children to learn it – music, movement, rhythm... You wrote about inspiring students, what is very important thing and every teacher should know and do that. You gave us outline of promoting emotional literacy, what to do with two-voice poems and tips for other activities. It was very educational reading bringing a lot of new knowledge :) Thank you! Martina