Learning to recite poetry from the age of 5

[Morebiscuitsplease]

While I have no problem with the emphasis on grammar and spelling. What does making a child learn poetry by heart really really teach a five year old? Surely appreciation and comprehension are more important. I feel that there are more useful things teachers could be doing with their time. Is this another of Gove's throwbacks to the fifties? if so, can someone please remind him we are educating our children for the 21 st century.

Learning poetry is no different to learning a song or a repeated story ... something five year-olds can manage quite easily. Even if they don't understand a poem fully to begin with, they can still enjoy the way it sounds. Not everything has to be comprehended to be appreciated and, at a time when 'teaching to the test' is disliked, I don't think everything they do at school has to be strictly 'useful'

Memorising is a fantastic skill. DH's 91 year old GF can still recite long poems he learned at primary school. Bright as a button, he is!

My 3 year old loves to sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' - what's the difference? It teaches them to love language, rhyme and intonation. Nothing wrong with it. They're not going to be reciting Shakespeare - it will be age appropriate.

Well, actually, I'd be happy if they returned to the question papers of the fifties - they're a lot harder than today's rubbish!

DD in year 1 learnt the Ning Nang Nong www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-ning-nang-nong/ earlier this term. She loves being able to say it and finds it really funny. I think its a great way of getting them ready for learning other things later on

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-ning-nang-nong On the Ning Nang Nong trying link again

sigh

I think we could safely say that nursery rhymes are poems and say that we do that already!

Gove talking crap.....again

I can still remember every word of "There Was a Boy Whose Name Was Jim" (Hilaire Belloc, I think) which I recited to my classmates at the age of six. It's quite long, too!

I read that too this morning, and thought well hang on - most kids can recite nursery rhymes easily from a young age anyway!

Gove also wants kids to learn correct use of the apostrophe - my inner pedant cheered at that one then I though oh no, I clearly need more [tea] if I'm agreeing with that irritating little man

blondie apostrophes are a L5 criterion in the 2000 curriculum.

Gove regurgitates........he doesn't come up with his own ideas and the sooner everyone wakes up to that, the sooner everyone will realise he's a total idiot.

he is not talking crap. Schools do not do enough memorising of poetry imo. It is a valuable skill, and I can tell you that whilst you all might sing nursery rhymes to your children, there are many children who are not given that experience. I teach lots of children every year who do not know nursery rhymes off by heart.

All education is 'regurgitation', surely? Passing on on what we know in a way we know to be effective. Methods may go in and out of fashion and the content may change with new discoveries but the basics of acquiring and transmitting knowledge don't alter all that much.

How can you have a Burns night competition without memorising poems? Aah the memories of all the wee weans doing Sair Finger by Walter Wingate

You've hurt your finger? Puir wee man!
Your pinkie? Deary me!
Noo, juist you haud it that wey till
I get my specs and see!

My, so it is - and there's the skelf!
Noo, dinna greet nae mair.
See there - my needle's gotten't out!
I'm sure that wasna sair?

And noo, to make it hale the morn,
Put on a wee bit saw,
And tie a Bonnie hankie roun't
Noo, there na - rin awa'!

Your finger sair ana'? Ye rogue,
You're only lettin' on.
Weel, weel, then - see noo, there ye are,
Row'd up the same as John!

Agree with Humphrey. I teach language at University level and my students are greatly hampered by the fact that they have no confidence in their ability to learn things by heart: they simply don't know what the human memory is capable of. So they never get the paradigms by heart, which makes it difficult to use their language effectively.

Reciting, that, is using their voice appropriately, would also seem a useful skill to learn: oral presentation is an important part of many careers and the sooner they get comfortable with it the better.

Children learn times tables; they learn nursery rhymes; they learn a myriad of facts EVERY DAY!

Why is important to be able to spout swathes of poetry from memory? believe me, learning Bible verses has never, ever done me any good, and it never, ever helped me remember quotations in later life. It takes a particular kind of memory - one I haven't got.

FWIW we address oral presentation as part of the curriculum when we're reading books with the children, and we focus on talk in the classroom.

I think for a lot of kids you'd have to STOP them learning things by heart rather than encourage them.
My DD is 4 and has been soaking up nursery rhymes and poems with glee and delight for ages. She recites bits of her books and all sorts - I think 'cause she can't read, she just has to memorise to keep it for her. She knows The Lorax better than me.

I work in a day nursery, and my pre-schoolers love learning poems.
Short ones, mind.

I think it's a fantastic idea.

A speech therapist I worked with said she's seeing so many more kids who can't get the hang of rhyming and certain speech patterns, etc, and she thinks it's due to children not being read nursery rhymes and poems anymore.

I learnt poems and long swathes of other stuff off by heart as a child and actually, yes, I do think it helped me esp in the ability to pass exams - it teaches one the skill of memorising long swathes of random stuff. Lots of people never learn how to do that - eg my dh - which has a knock-on effect on all the subjects where one has to memorise random words eg languages. He simply has no idea how to 'learn' vocab. Or quotes - hampered him at English A Level . etc.

Plus learning poetry teaches kids a sense of rhythm, increases vocab, helps them to get in touch with great works from the past etc.

So - much as it pains me to say it - I think this is a reasonable idea, actually. Obviously, it needn't be poetry - memorising any long text whether it is prayer or a poem or a speech will do - I think American kids learn the constitution etc etc? Same skills and effect on language.

Plus the reading out loud aspect helps kids get used to public speaking and clear enunciation.

In my case, my poetry learning didn't come from school actually - it came from my big brother, who taught me bits of The Lady of Shalott off by heart - I can still recite it now, flawlessly - along with other sections I chose to teach myself, once older.

What about the kids who are shy?I'd have rather died than recite poetry to the teacher let alone the whole class and I did an Eng Lit degree.

I have 3 quiet,shy kids who are extremely able readers that would also be mortified.

Are they going to put kids on the spot with times tables too?

What support are they going to give to those who find it hard?Is it going to take teacher time away from teaching them to read the words in the first place?

Nice and all but a class of 30 reciting poetry will take up teaching time and lots of it.

I speak as the mother of an 8 year old who lost his lunch hour for being too self conscious to join in with a class dance lesson and who now is even more scared of dancing publicly.

Sorry it's a big fat from me.

I also feel that this already happens. Even children who are not exposed to rhymes at home will get them at nursery (very few children don't take advantage of the free preschool sessions from 3 and now for some from 2).

Most children can sing the usual nursery rhymes.

I have a feeling Gove has an idea of his head of rows of tots in knickerbockers reciting chaucer or something!

PS I was always shit at memorising stuff too and still am - which is why the subjects I enjoy tend to be ones where you can work the answers out rather than memorising stuff.

I suppose that last bit is because everyone is different and if they are going to concentrate on learning by rote on the one hand they also need to do stuff for children who are better at other skills.

I agree Sardine don't most pre-schools teach nursery rhymes,isn't it part of EYFS?

Also going by my 7 year old and her continual singing of Pricetag at home(in no way would she do it at school) don't an awful lot of kids sing pop songs off by heart?