Those of us who love poetry can get a little over-anxious to expose kids to it - and we can make it go right over their heads by introducing the WRONG poetry.
I found another great quote from Edward Dolch:
The truth is, we are far too anxious to bring to the children the great thoughts of literature and especially of poetry. We give children adult thoughts while they are still playing with dolls and marbles. Instead, the poetry for children at any point in the grades needs to be close to their view of the world. The change to adult thinking and adult philosophizing needs to be kept gradual.
The first children's poet that most people think of is Shel Silverstein - and that's ok. But I'd also like to suggest Jack Prelutsky. I think he's a complete genius, and I've collected almost all his books. My 5th grade son needed a poem to memorize for school, so I suggested one that I memorized in grade school.
I am running in a circle
and my feet are getting sore,
and my head is
spinning
spinning
as it's never spun before,
I am
dizzy
dizzy
dizzy
Oh! I can not bear much more,
I am trapped in a
revolving
. . . volving
. . . volving
. . . volving door.
Come on, now. That's hilarious.
The other one that makes me laugh every time:
You need to have an iron rear
to sit upon a cactus,
or otherwise at least a year
of very painful practice.
The book these poems are in (The New Kid on the Block) has illustrations from James Stevenson and they just make the poems that much better. I got this book in 2nd grade and I wore. it. out.
To summarize: when it comes to poems, start silly, move on to serious later (once the kids have grasped the beauty and fun of words in poetic format.) Here's Jack Prelutsky's Amazon page.
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