The Power of Poetry

…and a ‘Poem a Day’.

 

There are oodles of benefits to sharing poetry with your class. It is a fabulous way of introducing pupils to new vocabulary and helping children to explore imagery and figurative language. (It is in poetry that elements such as metaphor and simile really come to life.) Imagine the language pupils are exposed to if we read aloud a poem a day for a term, a year, every year! That’s nearly 2,000 poems heard during their primary school journey!

Poetry can really support emerging readers. Often, developing readers are not as intimidated when reading poetry because many poems are short and sweet! This can be so supportive for older pupils who struggle with reading. Many reluctant readers often find it easier to engage with poetry books. Whole class sharing of poetry can inspire less confident readers to dip into poetry collections independently. The performance element is also great for bringing a classroom alive with activity and this can have a huge impact on comprehension.

Reading poetry is also of course so important to development in writing. Poetry encourages children to play with language and words. When reading poetry, they hear how words can be moved and stretched to rhyme and use the models they have read in their own writing. Through poetry pupils learn about word economy and the importance of ‘never wasting a word’.

Most importantly however, poetry can deepen children’s imagination, challenge them to think differently about the world and help foster compassion and empathy – some of the most important elements of primary education.

We are so passionate about reading poetry aloud in the primary classroom and have always recommended ‘Poem a Day’. Schools who have implemented this as part of their daily routine find that the children quickly take over! They remind teachers who forget to read a poem that day and children are keen to find poems of their own they want to share with the class.

There are so many great poetry anthologies to support this as well as loads of great resources online. There are a number of websites which give great poetry book recommendations to get you started including https://www.booksfortopics.com/poetry and https://clpe.org.uk/poetryline/poems. Keep checking our social media for recommendations of great ‘read alouds’ to use in the classroom. We definitely believe that ‘Poem a Day’ is the way!