ABSTRACT
Children love reading, writing and performing poetry. It is essential to our well-being because it focuses upon creativity. . . and creativity matters, especially for those with chaotic lives. It is worth remembering that the opposite of creation is destruction. It seems an obvious idea to work out which poets are going to become the main focus for teaching with a poet a term. This means that the children become familiar with a range of poets over time. For instance:
Year Group Poets
Year 3 June Crebin James Carter Michael Rosen
Year 4 Charles Causley Alan Ahlberg Jan Dean
Year 5 Valerie Bloom Brian Moses Kit Wright
Year 6 Ted Hughes William Blake Judith Nichols
Jackie Kay Carol Ann Duffy
Year 8 Brian Patten Matthew Sweeney Grace Nicols
Year 9 Philip Gross John Agard Helen Dunmore
At key stage 1 children need to learn a bank of nursery, traditional and action rhymes. Many picture books rhyme (Each Peach Pear Plum) and there are a few ‘key’ poems such as ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ that should be learned and performed. Poetry at key stage 1 should be a daily occurrence and this is achieved by establishing a ‘poem of the week’. It is worth remembering that there is a strong link between success in reading and experience in rhyming. In many classes the idea of ‘rhyme of the week’ needs to be carried on into year 3.
