Have you ever memorized poetry? No? How many lyrics to songs do you know? These are poems, just set to music. 🙂 So, what purpose is there in having your child memorize poetry? Here are 5 reasons to consider.

1. Poetry establishes rhythmic patterns, which in turn lead to teaching balance and symmetry. Have you ever listened to part of a poem that rhymes, been given the next line, only to have found yourself anticipating what the last word will be to rhyme with the line beforehand? For instance: Humpty Dumpty sat on a Wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great _____. Oh, yes! You knew it was going to be fall. 🙂

2. Memorizing creates opportunity for your brain to be speedy, quick and oh, so agile! When your brain is required to learn pieces of information, less time is needed later for it to be required to learn something new. Knowing multiplication facts, your address, telephone number and directions are examples of automatic recall because they were committed to memory.

3. “Educators have found that students who were required to memorize from an early age often go on to have more capacity to focus on educational tasks as high school and college students.” Who, as a homeschool educator, would not want that for their child? source: http://www.bestcollegesonline.com

4. Memorizing poetry introduces vocabulary to students. For instance, would your junior high student know the meaning of this line from Hamlet? “Brevity is the soul of wit.”I would venture to say, no since brevity is the key thought in this line. As a language arts activity, have your student define unknown words before memorizing so the meaning of the poem is understood.

5. History can be incorporated when memorizing poetry. I have introduced some lines of poetry earlier that have a story behind them. For instance, what was the meaning of Humpty Dumpty? Was he really an egg? You can CLICK HERE to read about several explanations for the origin of this rhyme.  As your student memorizes poems, have them learn something additionally about the piece such as a fact about the author, when it was written, etc.

Here are two poems and a saying to help your student begin with memorization. Spread the memorizing out over the course of the month if necessary. These can also be used for copywork and dictation that I have created for this month. March Copywork