~Literature Guide Page
......................................
How to teach poetry in your homeschool:
1. For the young or inexperienced child, start off
with a variety of short or easy to
understand poems. Slowly
proceed to more difficult verse.
2. "Set-up" the
poem first, even if it is a simple poem.
a. Often times, a little
background information
will
make the poem much more enjoyable than if it had simply been "jumped into".
For
example, if I was going to read Stevenson's "Pirate Story" to my children, I
would
first say something like, "Today our poem is about some children who
are
pretending to be pirates. Their ship is a basket and their ocean is
the cow
pasture. By the way, do any of you remember the name of the star that
sailors
used to
sail by?"
b. A simple way to set-up a
poem is to have the child look at the corresponding
illustration.
c. A meaningful way to set-up a
poem is to give personal thoughts, such as "This
was one of my
favorite poems when I was your age," or "This poem makes me
feel happy,"
or "What happened in this poem happened to me once."
3. Introduce
unfamiliar content in the poem before reading it aloud.
One day, as I finished reading a poem
about lighthouses to my children who have
always lived inland, I noticed
their blank, uncomprehending stares. Realizing that
they had only a vague idea of what a
lighthouse was, I explained what a
lighthouse looked like and what its
purpose was. Then, I reread the poem.
This time, it was enjoyed.
a. Keep it brief!
b. Go over no more than two
unfamiliar words before the poem. If there are
more,
discuss those words after the poem is read, perhaps asking the
children if they can guess what the words mean.
4.
Have each child share his "favorite-poem-of-the-week" at least once a week.
My girls and I have "tea-time" each
school day. (Because I'm a chocoholic, we often
drink hot chocolate rather than tea-
but we call it tea and we do use tea-cups :) On
Mondays I usually go over the
habit-of-the-week and read a few of my favorite
poems. On the other days, they
take turns being the hostesses, pouring the "tea"
"driving" the conversation, and sharing
their favorite poems.
5. Have your
child memorize one poem each month, to recite perfectly
on the last Friday of the month.
6. Have your
child illustrate the poem s/he is memorizing and show the illustration
at the recital.
7. Have your child use the poem s/he is memorizing as a copywork tool.
***For the
poetry booklists, please visit the
Poetry Booklist page.***
***For a complete literature program, please visit
the
Literature Guide Page.***
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