There are an endless number of hidden benefits in exposing children to a diverse selection of poetry at an early age. Reading poetry aloud with your children helps them fall in love with words and gives them the tools they need to become enthusiastic readers. By emphasizing the sound and rhythm of language, poetry builds children’s phonemic awareness, or sensitivity to the smallest sounds of speech, laying a foundation for beginning reading. Also, poets’ inventive, skillful use of language introduces children to new vocabulary words and concepts.
Poetry celebrates the individual word, the sound of language, and the rhythm of language in a way that narrative does not. Introducing very young children to poetry exposes them to the sounds and rhythms of language. For older children, poetry is a great vehicle for learning how complex thoughts, humorous ideas, deep emotions, or entire narratives can be expressed with a few carefully chosen words.
Let’s Talk Literacy – March 2013