Poetry memorization

[Unregistered]

I read your excellent article, "One Myth, Two Truths," in the Winter 2005 issue of "The Classical Teacher." I was happy to finally find a useful and definitive answer to my question of how to help my son become a good writer. Can you suggest any curriculm resource for age/grade level appropropriate poetry for elementary age children to memorize? Also, what method of memorizing do you recommend? Is it too much for a second or third grader to be memorizing scipture and poetry? Thanks for any advice you can give.

[Mungo]

Is it too much for a second or third grader to be memorizing scipture and poetry?

I'm not the author of the article, but I can share my experience as a homeschooling parent.

It's not only possible for children to begin memorizing at an early age, it's actually easy for them! Their brains are wired to soak up and imitate language, so it's almost effortless for a child of two or three to memorize Bible verses and prayers. (Kids in Awana, a Scripture memory club, learn up to 176 verses before age 5!) From there it's just a small step to short poems. Do your children know any nursery rhymes by heart? Then they've memorized a poem! :) Certainly a second or third grader would be capable of this - and much more.

Have you seen The Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura Berquist? It's a great all-in-one resource for recitation, copywork, and dictation, arranged by age. It includes some Scripture, lots of poems, and dictation passages from good children's books. The material in the new Memoria Press copybooks would be a great starting point, too.

Enjoy!

[martin]

Andrew Pudewa of the Institutes for Excellence in Writing has a new poetry program out using a mastery learning approach. He should be pretty good at this, since he studied for several years under Shiniki Suzuki, the originator of the Suzuki method of music instruction, which is basically mastery learning.

I can't recall the name of it, but if you contact them, they will know what you are talking about.

Martin Cothran