Poetry as Sound
One of the best ways for both adults and children to enjoy poetry is by reading it aloud. This allows for the language of the poem to become sound. Repetition, rhyme, meter, and alliteration are some of the elements of poems that make them enjoyable as oral language. From an early age, children instinctively respond to poetry. Even in the earliest years, babies and young children are calmed by lullabies and exact retellings of stories. The melodic language of poetry creates comforting memories from an early age (3). These expressions of love are stored as neurological pathways in the brain. Our worlds are organized by the memories of language, music, and sound that we have heard in the past. This begins even as infants. As we grow older, we latch onto language that is predictable and familiar (4). Recalling sound and music can bring back visceral experiences because sound is so strongly tied to memory. Poetry is the written form of music, and it provides a joyful sensory experience as well as activating multiple intelligences. Poetic language inspires visual imagery, evokes creative thinking, and gives perspective into other worlds. These interactions, when begun in childhood, can carry into adulthood as enjoyable and impactful experiences.
Poetry as Object
The presentation of a poem is equally as important as the language of the poem. The object of the words can be presented as a video poem, erasure poem, a published work, or even letters. The form and presentation of a poem can also contribute to the meaning of the poem itself. For young students, the most common presentation of poetry is in the form of a picture book. The picture book is an art object that is accessible to both children and adults because of the ability to hold and interact with it. The words and pictures play off each other allowing the reader to draw meaning from both. Children can interpret ideas in this form that are beyond what they can read and what is expected of them developmentally (5). A poem can gain new meaning when published in a picture book, whether it is a part of an anthology or a stand-alone poem that carries across the pages with accompanying artwork. The presentation of poetry in picture books also gives the opportunity for different visuals including photography, drawing, painting, collage, or illustration. A poem can become a new object when the visual accompaniment changes. For example, a poem may appear in a collection of poems by a particular author. The same poem may also appear in a collection of a particular type of poetry, such as silly poems or poems by Black authors. Again, the same poem may appear by itself in a picture book with each line or verse on a different page with illustrations or photographs. The visual effects and experience of reading the poem change as its presentation changes. Students may gain new meaning and greater comprehension from reading a poem in a new form.
Visualization as a Comprehension Strategy
Students benefit from guidance as they are learning a new skill. In a gradual release model, instruction begins with a teacher demonstrating and guiding a group of students. As students grow in their abilities, the teacher gives over the practice and learning for students to complete with their peers and eventually independently. Visualization is a reading comprehension strategy, and many students need explicit modeling of the new skill before they can correctly use it independently. After students see a teacher model the skill, they are ready to work with their peers to practice this skill. Discussion is an important part of learning reading comprehension strategies. Students need to be able to talk to each other and share ideas under the guidance of a facilitating teacher. Kate Noble researched the role that discussion and drawing plays in comprehending picture books:
… when children draw and talk about picture books, they often reveal their cognitive, aesthetic and emotional awareness, which in turn contributes to understanding the development of visual literacy (6).
By expressing their ideas, whether through conversation or drawing, students are better able to process what they are reading and seeing. This leads to a greater sense of visual literacy. Children benefit from responding to texts and pictures in drawings. This allows students to express their thoughts when they may have difficulty using words. Many young students are still learning how to write and expressing ideas through words can be difficult for some children. Drawing removes the pressure and frustration that children who struggle with writing experience. It also builds their ability to visualize what is happening in a text. As children discuss and draw, they build their visual literacy, which will transfer over into future things that they read and art that they see. This unit focuses on visualization through illustration so that all students can focus on mastering this reading comprehension strategy without the challenge of expressing their thoughts through writing.
Visualization allows students to make sense of the language in both poetry and prose. It considers the meaning of both the words and the pictures. This unit will focus on visualization of the text, although this strategy can also be practiced with illustrations. For readers, particularly developing ones, it is important to create mental pictures using the words in the text. Skilled readers actively engage with a text by picturing what is happening. This happens automatically and makes reading more enjoyable. Specifically, visualizing while reading poetry promotes abstract thinking and creativity (7). Poetry often requires thinking about figurative language and language that is not as straightforward as prose. Students can gain meaning from a text beyond what is on the surface, and they can synthesize the work of literature with their own thoughts, writings, and drawings. Another way of thinking of visualization is as making mind movies (8). This approach to visualization is engaging and entertaining to children. Students enjoy creating and sharing their own mind movies. Visualization is an important comprehension strategy for students because it supports the process of moving from reading picture books to chapter books. This transition naturally happens around the third grade, but for students that have mastered word decoding it can happen sooner. Students need explicit instruction to grasp the concept of visualizing and utilize it for themselves. They greatly benefit from having a teacher verbalize about their mental process and sharing their own visualizations. As students begin to understand how to visualize, they can model for their peers how to visualize. Students can engage in discussion around their visualizations to help them build off each other’s ideas. Eventually, this comprehension strategy becomes automatic and skilled readers are rarely cognizant that they are visualizing as they read.
Visualization offers a starting point for accessing poetry. All students can experience poetry though sometimes students may not have the words to express their feelings out loud or in writing. There are different ways to approach poetry including illustration, writing poetry in response, and dramatic retellings. The important part of teaching poetry is that students are responding to poetry in their own individual way (9). When readers understand and reply to a poem, they become owners of it.
Selecting High Quality Poetry for Children
One challenge of teaching poetry to young children is selecting high-quality poetry for reading and study. The poems included in many textbooks and curricula written for young students are often brief and lacking depth. This is condescending to children’s abilities. Children deserve access and the support needed to understand high-quality poems (10). This means selecting poems that they may not have been exposed to and may not understand yet. Students may need support when reading poems that were originally written for adults, but with assistance they can claim ownership of poems. Studying and growing familiar with poems at a young age makes them more accessible as children age and move into adulthood. As a teacher, it is important to take time to find and choose poems that are both engaging and challenging for students.
The best poems written for children include language that can be both universal and personal. When children are included as participants and not just passive consumers of poetry, they can truly enjoy it. The best of children’s poetry can be light-hearted but still profound (11). These types of poems engage students’ curiosity and amuse them while still causing them to think. All children appreciate poems that make them laugh and push their imaginations. Children aged seven through nine especially appreciate silly poems (12). Students in first grade are entering this age range. Children are often surprised and greatly amused to get to study silly or outrageous poems in school. This can foster creativity and form a view of school as a place of belonging and enjoyment. This curriculum unit will look at a variety of types of poems both light-hearted and serious.