April is National Poetry Month, 30 days of celebrating the joy, expressiveness, and pure delight of poetry. Learn more about the National Poetry Month, get to know some of our most well-loved children’s poets in our video interview series, browse the many online resources listed here, and visit your local library or bookstore to discover wonderful new books and anthologies.
This article offers some ideas on how to introduce poetry to ELLs and integrate it with reading instruction, as well as some ideas for reading poetry aloud in a way that will encourage oral language development.
This article discusses strategies for writing poetry with ELLs, presents an overview of poetry forms that can be used effectively in writing lessons, and suggests some ideas for ways to share student poetry.
From activating prior knowledge to exploring language to capturing character, discover ten ways to integrate poetry into your language, reading, and writing lessons.
Read and discuss poetry with nature imagery with students. Take students on a poetry walk around the school, neighborhood, or community to observe and collect sensory images from direct experience with nature: the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of things outdoors. Students can take a poetry journal with them to write down words as they observe, listen, smell, and touch things outside the classroom.
Explore how to use children’s poetry to encourage kids to read. You might start with poems from celebrated poets like Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, Judith Viorst, and Eloise Greenfield.
Sharing poetry with kids is a great way to highlight language. Poems offer humor, interesting words, tongue twisters, alliteration, and opportunities for choral reading (reading together). Find out how to plan a lively and fun family poetry jam!
Parents and teachers can help children explore their own wilderness by both writing and reading poetry. The range of possibilities in the written word inspired by art is unlimited.
There is always a surprise or two in collections of poetry compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins. He brings together a range of poetry by diverse poets to help readers think differently about even the most familiar things. It’s even possible to find a poem by Mr. Hopkins himself in his collections.
It seems appropriate that both National Poetry Month and Earth Day are observed in April. One celebrates worlds in words; the other reminds us of the importance of the world. Start this celebratory month by reading about our world using words that paint pictures. Discover many more related titles with Book Finder.
Celebrate poetry with this lyrical selection of readings. You’ll find Mother Goose, alphabet poems in Spanish and English, an ode to Harlem — even a rhyming dog. The playful language in all of these recommended books for kids ages 0-9 makes for great read-aloud fun. Discover many more related titles with Book Finder.
February 14th is Valentine’s Day, a day to show family and friends how much you love and appreciate them. Here at Reading Rockets, we also see Valentine’s Day as a perfect opportunity to practice creative writing skills — and take a fresh look at poetry, figurative language, and word play.
Dr. Sylvia Vardell is a professor of children’s literature in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University and the 2014 recipient of the Scholastic Library Publishing Award. In this interview, she talks about her recent collaboration with Janet Wong to compile the Poetry Friday Anthology series for elementary school, middle school, and science topics; ideas for using poetry across the curriculum; and reasons that teachers may be reluctant to teach poetry.
Meet J. Patrick Lewis, the author of more than 80 books of poetry for children, on every topic under the sun — from celebrations of Civil Rights heroes (and she-roes) to riddle-filled math puzzlers to poems about amazing animals and iconic buildings from around the world. For decades, Lewis has been sharing his delight for poetry with school kids — and hoping to inspire new lovers of language. He served as our third Children’s Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2013.
Cultural heritage months and reading celebrations like NEA’s Read Across America fill the calendar year with joyful ways to explore multicultural stories, read together, and learn together.
