The Benefits of Reading Poetry with Your Child

Poetry reading can have a profound effect on the development of your child. In fact, experts in literacy have discovered that if a child knows a variety of nursery rhymes by the time they are four years old they are quite advanced little readers.

Reciting and reading poems with your child allows your preschooler to focus on a specific task, train their senses, exercise memory, and tune their ears. The benefits of reading poetry at an early age can be broken down into four main categories: language development, cognitive development, physical development, and social/emotional development.

Language Development

The rhyming aspect in poetry makes it easier for kids to learn new words. It alleviates the pressure of the learning experience on your child, allowing them to learn language in a fun, creative, and engaging way. The rhythmic nature of poetry creates a context for learning unfamiliar words, as well. As adults, we often forget how difficult learning our native spoken language can be. The reading and repetition of preschool poems aloud, helps children to practice their pitch, voice inflection, and volume.

Cognitive Development

Reading poetry regularly with your preschool age child allows them to develop early cognitive function. Through rhymes and poems, children understand that even though words may sound similar, they have different meanings. Poetry will enable your child to understand patterns, which lead to sequences, and sentence structure. This type of sequencing helps the brain to process and retain information, which can be beneficial later in life with academic subjects such as math and foreign language.

Physical Development

Preschool poetry reading can also teach several aspects of linguistics. The musical structure of the rhymes allow your child to better coordinate their breathing, tongue and mouth movements. It makes learning language seem effortless to your child. They don’t even realize how much they are retaining when reciting a simple nursery rhyme.

Social/Emotional Development

Reciting poetry with little ones also helps them to develop emotionally and socially. The practice of reading poetry provides them with an opportunity for their personality to develop in a fun and expressive way. In turn, you as a parent get to see this development, which helps you to understand their individuality and creativity.

So choose a favorite poetry book with your child, and recite poems together often. The benefits of doing so will pay off for the rest of their lives.

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If you enjoyed this post we invite you to read our blog, “3 Lovely Children’s Books About Autumn.“

Carmel Mountain Preschool provides a safe and caring environment with hands-on, developmentally-appropriate programs for children. We also offer excellent care for elementary school-age students with our before and after school programs. CMP is located at 9510 Carmel Mountain Road, San Diego CA 92129, situated between 4S Ranch, Rancho Peñasquitos, Carmel Valley, and Santaluz For more information, please visit our website or contact us at 858.484.4877.