Why do I teach my kids to memorize poetry?
There are a few reasons for this:
1. Memorization is part of our Language Arts curriculum. This is the reason we started to memorize poetry, as I have seen the benefits and learned more about memorization we have added more of it to our curriculum plan.
2. Helps kids learn language patterns. Andrew Pudewa from the Institute for Excellence in Writing includes memorization in his talk entitled “Nurturing Competent Communicators” it’s free on iew.com and I highly recommend it. He talks about why memorization is important, why we should choose excellent literature for our kids, and why reading aloud to our kids or having them listen to audio books is more beneficial in nurturing good writing and communication skills than reading quietly to themselves.
3. Builds confidence. My 4-year-old is so proud of himself when he can recite a poem for someone and they tell him what a good job he did. All of my kids are proud of how many poems they have been able to memorize it gives them a boost of confidence that they can learn something that seemed really hard at first.
4. The more we memorize, the easier it gets. Memorizing multiplication facts, scriptures, a part for a play, or anything else is much easier for a child (or adult) who is used to memorizing, knows how to do it, is practiced in the skill, and has the confidence that if they can memorize 20 or more poems they can memorize anything.