ABSTRACT
Poetry makes a special contribution to children’s language development as poets use distinctive kinds of language and patterning. The linguistically playful side of some kinds of poetry, nursery rhymes and nonsense verse, for example, make it possible for children to find sheer pleasure in manipulating sounds and images. Changing displays of poems, poetry anthologies, reviews and children’s own poems and pictures awaken interest. A ‘poetry time’ when children can read aloud their favourite poems and say why they have chosen them is also helpful and need not take up a lot of time – ten or fifteen minutes would suffice. Teachers could usefully observe and note these ‘critical moments’ in a child’s progress as a reader of poetry. Some teachers feel less confident about this than they do about assessing children’s progress as readers and writers of other literary forms.
