How Do You Teach Beginning Reading Skills Through Poetry?
Poetry is a good tool to use to teach reading skills to kids. Through colorful words, vivid imagery and sensory descriptions, a lot of meaning and words can be packed into a couple of lines of verse. This allows kids to focus on specific lessons and ease into reading comfortably, not being intimidated by pages and pages of reading material. Here are some ways to teach beginning reading skills through poetry. Teach vocabulary by selecting vivid words. Poetry can be viewed from many angles. The first reading usually gives an overview of what the poem is about, while further readings allows you to see through the words and think of the figurative tools that the authors used in the piece. Read the poem with your child and look at the poem physically and on a simpler level. Don’t read into it since the child may not understand meanings yet. Pick words that imply something physical since its easier for a kid to understand things that that can be seen or imagined rather than abstract concepts
