Holly King-Mand is an education and children’s writer, speaker, dedicated teacher, and passionate advocate for literacy. She garnered widespread acclaim as 'the nation’s favourite English teacher' for her dedication to ensuring that children continued to learn English during the pandemic. Since then, Holly’s work has been a source of inspiration for countless others.
The Importance of Poetry for Children
Thanks to National Poetry Day, October is traditionally the month that cultures and communities celebrate poetry, and it’s a great time to introduce the magic of poetry to your young reader! This month, poetry book sales will reportedly rise by over 33%, and poetry events—reading, writing, and performing them—will sweep the country.
National Poetry Day is a nationwide celebration campaign in which thousands of events will be held in schools, art centres, cafes, libraries, and people’s homes in recognition of poetry’s ‘power to bring people together’. The organisers believe that voices, words, and stories create understanding between communities, and they have worked closely with schools and teacher training programmes to provide resources around each year’s poetry theme.
Why is poetry important for my child?
Poetry can be an essential tool for self-expression; 66.5% of children found writing poetry helped them cope with the difficulties of lockdown. A report conducted in 2020 found that poetry was the most common way for 11 to 16-year-olds to encounter diverse writing from African and Asian cultures. These statistics support National Poetry Day’s organisers’ belief that poetry can help bridge understanding between cultures and communities and why poetry is so important.
Rhyme time
Some of the oldest known poems, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Song of the Weaver, do not have a named author. Researchers believe this might be because early poetry was sung and passed on through the sharing of stories. For the youngest children, an excellent first step into poetry is to sing songs and nursery rhymes, recognising where the rhyming words are.
Authors like Dr Seuss are a great way into early poetry, where readers can experiment with the rhythm and pace of the words on the page. As their reading confidence increases, they can move from the tongue twisters of Fox in Socks to the winding tale of The Lorax.
Reading Poetry
In 2022, 28% of children said they read poetry at least once a month in their free time. To ensure your child is part of that 28% regularly reaping the benefits of poetry, provide plenty of material across genres to help them find what they enjoy. Librarians can direct you to some wonderful poetry anthologies around different themes.
Dan Thompson has written excellent poetry books around positive thinking and nature, such as Outside In and Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers. If your child might prefer something silly, many generations have loved Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts, and for good reason.
Reading Aloud and Listening
Nothing brings poetry to life quite like reading it aloud! The oral tradition of sharing poetry through reading aloud is important and children will benefit from hearing poetry as much as they will from reading it. Seeing poetry performed on stage can be an awe-inspiring experience; children’s writers such as Michael Rosen often participate in special events like this.
If you can’t get to a live performance, there are a plethora of poetry videos on YouTube. Search your favourite classic and modern poets and children’s authors and see what treasures you might find.
Pen to paper
Writing poetry is the fun part because the rules are so… bendy! Some enjoy writing poetry that rhymes or fits a controlled shape or structure, but it's not required. Poetry should feel creative and expressive! If you want to encourage your child to write poetry, there are many styles that might capture their imagination, with haiku and limericks being popular at key stage 2.
Carly Woodall, Assistant Headteacher at Brooklands Middle School suggests, ‘Shape poems are popular in lower key stage 2’. These types of poems are words applied to the page in a visually interesting way to connect with the theme of the writing.
She continues, ‘At Brooklands, year 5 do a scheme of work based around Katherine Rundell’s Explorer. The children in the adventure story follow the Amazon (or a tributary of it) and so we pause and consider poetry and write river poems’.
Poetry and The Curriculum
Fast forward to key stage 3, and modern poets like Benjamin Zephaniah and Grace Nichols are widely studied. These poets incorporated their Caribbean cultural heritage with their experiences in Britain to create intriguing and thought-provoking poetry.
At key stage 4, British poets such as William Shakespeare, William Blake, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are studied. Poems during their era usually rhymed and used standard English and have caught the imagination of the generations that have followed.