Teaching Poems To Primary School Pupils

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TEACHING POEMS TO PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS

Poetry the most creative form of literar expression. Poems have their own meaningful language, shaped into the perfect form. Poems include all forms of human experience, starting with the simple ones and going to the most complex. Poetry speaks to the intellectual and the ordinary, to the adult and the child.

The reasons for teaching poetry to primary school pupils are similar to those for using songs and other activities. One great thing about teaching poems is that children have the opportunity to see the creative part of the language. Poems are being used in different ways in class and the more teachers use them, the more uses they will find for them.

Teaching poetry implies a great involvement of the teacher and the children, because the teacher has an important role to play and also do the children. The teacher’s objective is teaching students to like and enjoy poems and poetry. This implies a certain amount of knowledge and skill, but also a lot of preparation on the teachers part.

It is very important to teach poems to primary school pupils as poetry is, in essence, all about words choices and use of those words. Poetry means thinking about how some words fit together and considering even the movement of sentences or groups of words. Somehow, poetry can be accessed even by pupils who find English difficult to access, because the description and imagery in the poems can be more apparent and abstract.

The first thing that has to be considered when teachers are selecting poems for primary classes is the level of language. If the teacher chooses a poem that is too hard to understand, he will end up explaining every single word to the pupils and the poem loses its spark.

On the other hand, pupils won’t need to understand every word of the poem to get the general idea, so teachers can choose poems with language levels above what pupils would normally be able to handle. If children are prepared, supported throughout and pre-taught some of the difficult words in the poem or given visual aid, they will be able to understand more challenging poems than the ones they are used to.

Some teachers are working to create a poetry friendly classroom, but that is not easy. A poetry friendly classroom implies developing an environment where the children have the opportunity to listen and to share various poems in a range of different circumstances. Exposing small children to poetry helps them to develop an appreciation of the genre. Enjoying reading and hearing poetry develops an environment and a culture based on the acceptance of poetry.

Routman reported that reading poetry in class increased confidence and reading competence in struggling readers. On the other hand, Campbell stated that children who read and listen to poetry develop the desire to read more and more poems. According to Campbell another positive aspect of reading poetry in class is that poems inspire children to write their own poems.

Teaching poetry encourages the pupils to think about how to read the poems in order to better engage the audience. On the other hand, poems allow children to perform and use the punctuation and intonation in a way it can help with the understanding of the poem.

The intentions that a teacher may have for utilizing poetry in class are a way to offer cognitive understanding or a new view, based on linguistic metaphors, through which pupils can examine and re-examine ideas. As a result, children will feel the need to express themselves, and will start approaching poetry.

Plenty of research has been done and it shows that using poetry in teaching primary school pupils has contributed to a lot of beneficial outcomes. Improved grades, better attendance at classes, children participation are some of the beneficial aspects of teachers adding poetry to their lessons. When teachers add poems into the lessons, they nourish the need for cognitive, emotional and spiritual intelligence. Poems can offer linguistically stimulating alternatives to discussion topics. In fact, besides providing discussion topics, poetry is valuable because it helps develop oral fluency.

Many cross-curricular themes that act as a focus for teaching in the primary classrooms can be illustrated through poetry. That is because poems offer a way of thinking that is reflective and a succinct way to get an information, to remember facts, to present a point of view or to sustain an argument.

Many skills that are required in order to write good poems are the same skills necessary for science. Some of this skills are observation, description and metaphorical thinking. Collaboration between disciplines will allow children to take learning to a higher level, also revealing research, observation and writing skills.

Marvin Bell acknowledges a mutuality between literature and composition, but insists that only with a correct approach and with focus students will collect the benefits of reading and writing. Studying poetry in the composition classroom brings some advantages for students:

Students learn to respect subtle effects aesthetically

Analysis of poems show students how an ambiguous tone is ineffective

Students become aware of objective-subjective movement and the relationships in poems

Students observe that a poem can only be as good as the supporting material it has

Students become more aware of the elements needed for intentional communication

Students learn that succinct language has many benefits for the writer

Students learn that a poem may be narrative, expository, critical or argumentative and that it may combine these aspects

Students learn that their experiences contain material that is useful

Students recognize that good writing makes a point precisely

A student can study multiple styles through the use of poetry than through the use of any other genre

Students learn to investigate diction, structure, tone and effective language.

Studies conducted by The Office for Standards in Education in England show that teachers and students feel aversion toward poetry. According to another survey conducted by Ray in 1999, lots of high school teachers expressed a sense of fear and reported inhibition over teaching poems and poetry, but in primary classes it`s easier to teach children poetry. The problem that occurs, is that the common perception among many teachers is that children manifest quite a negative attitude towards poetry, but in fact the children are negativistic because they know very little about poems and poetry.

The majority of primary school children respond positively to poems and poetry, but young adults and secondary school students tend to manifest various degrees of indifference. The blame is often put on the schools, more specifically on the teachers and the teaching methods.

Based on an English study, children were very clear about the reasons they liked poetry. Children enjoyed reading and sharing their own poems in class. Children in primary schools, are in particular, excited about the opportunity to read and perform poems to an audience. Many of them enjoy learning and reciting poems to larger groups.

However, many teachers, especially in the primary schools, don`t know enough about poetry. This sometimes leads to poor judgement in grading children creativity and uniformity in practice, so that the same few recommended poems are studied in most of the schools. Although these well-known poems are worth studying, many are lightweight and children experience of classic poems and of poems from other cultures is limited.

Children relate easily to familiar situations, and also they respond rapidly to poems from their own time. The strategy in teaching poetry is to use poems that help children understand and describe the world better. A skilled teacher can determine at what stage of the lesson he should introduce a more universal poem. It`s very important for the poem to present a way in which the pupils will identify with one another and will develop a greater sense of community.

Charles stated that teaching poetry in primary school could be an effective strategy for literacy and a better way to address children`s misbehavior through establishing a personal connections with the content of the poem. Problematic behavior increases stress levels, and lowers the morale. Creating a positive atmosphere in class is an important part of encouraging good conduct and improving learning.

Using poems of consacrated authors and allowing the children to compose their own poems provides primary school pupils with many creative choices. Poems are used in class mainly because they support creativity, good spelling, memory and performance skills.

BIBLIOGRAFIE

Campbell, R., Read-alouds with young children, UK, Intl. Reading Assn., 2001.

Charles, C.M., Building classroom discipline, USA, Pearson Education, 2005.

Ray, R., The diversity of poetry, The Curriculum Journal, Volume 10, 1999.

Routman, R. (2000). Conversations: Strategies for teaching, learning, and evaluating, UK, Heinemann.

Samuels, F., Using Poetry To Teach Sociology. American Sociological Association, Volume 15, 1987.

*** Poetry in Schools. A survey of practice, The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, 2007.