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My kid is almost 7 years old, that is to say he just enrolled in Y2. His English is ok -- he's read some Roald Dahl's beautiful stories (Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, BFG etc) and quite enjoys them.

Now, my problem is, how shall he start learning poems? English is not my mother tongue, I can't teach him poetry. I'm wondering, how could I help him picking him poetry, step by step, gradually?

I would like to find a gentle introduction, that would ignite the little flame in his heart on the beauty of poems, to appreciate the rhyme and imagination, as an invitation to another world besides novel. Better still, if there are some introduction on the forms and some analysis on the poems, and some exercises so he might try on his own.

Tommi
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athos
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If you want to introduce your child to poetry, there is a wealth of poetry that is specifically directed at children. Many picture books are essentially poems, and there are also many poets who have written for children.

Lewis Carroll, Shel Silverstein, and A.A. Milne all wrote poems that your child may enjoy. Instead of doing adult-style literary analysis, I would suggest more active ways of exploring the texts (acting them out, singing them, making your own picture book editions). This will get the kid excited about the poems without making them seem like homework.

Tesserae
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  • do you have some book recommendation? i dare not trust my taste here.. – athos Sep 28 '20 at 11:32
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    @athos, as a seven-year-old, I loved Shel Silverstein's collections "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light in the Attic" - and I would have loved "Falling Up" if it had been published when I was seven. – Juhasz Sep 30 '20 at 00:33
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    @Juhasz thank you, just bought all of them :) – athos Oct 03 '20 at 09:45