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Reading & Books Poetry Prompt: Reading to Children

By Heather Eure 10 Comments

reading&bookspromptAll literature is created from our need to tell stories—about ourselves, others, or about the world—asserts The International Board on Books for Young People. Every story, fable, myth, or novel is the result of basic needs: they help us to understand the world, to live, survive, and also to help children grow up and to enrich their development.

Reading to Children

Learning to read begins with learning to listen, notes the Board. During the first months of an infant’s life, he learns to recognize his mother’s voice. From this and other voices, the infant begins to find his own voice and unique, personal language. While family and friends sing a song or tell a story, the baby realizes the poetic voice of those around him, a difference from the regular tone of conversation. The poetic timbre of reading and singing introduce children to the world of literature.

It’s crucial that we tell stories and read aloud to children, whether these are invented stories, remembered tales, or passages read from a storybook. Such times are precious and privileged moments, filled with tenderness and affection, where a child can discover the power of story and its magic.

Try It

What is the first book or story you recall that was read to you? Do you remember the first book you read to a special child in your life? What was it? What made this book important? Maybe it seemed as though it was read several hundred times over the course of a childhood. Think about the tale, the feelings or emotions you experienced, perhaps even the expressions of the child, and create a poem from it. Alternately, you could write your poem from the book’s perspective.

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Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Andrew we enjoyed:

When death seems ever present, and the moon
Gives out but half its nightly shine
Then I will sing some half forgotten tune
Enchanting in its melody and rhyme.

Sweet words to go with bitter heart!
The book that’s bound can also bind
The soul of he who reads of it.
Ah, but to go without is to be blind!

To never see the towers made of gold,
Or breathe the heady scent of honey
Found in some delighting insect’s bower –
To never smell the midnight blooming flower

Or walk the sands of time, never to look
At what was past. Steadfast, instead, to go
Where one may look upon the pages of the book
That is one’s life, and see what you already know

Writ large as life itself. And then, to see the close
Of your own tome, knowing it for your tomb
But still to laugh, and read the lines, escaping
Not just your own drab space of chair and room.

And then, before the ending comes
To lift brave head and sing that tune
Once sung when death seemed present
And the shine was missing from the moon.

—by Andrew

Photo by ThomasLife. Creative Commons via Flickr.

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How to Write a Poem 283 high How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.

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Heather Eure
Heather Eure
Heather Eure has served as the Poetry Editor for the late Burnside Collective and Special Projects Editor for us at Tweetspeak Poetry. Her poems have appeared at Every Day Poems. Her wit has appeared just about everywhere she's ever showed up, and if you're lucky you were there to hear it.
Heather Eure
Latest posts by Heather Eure (see all)
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Filed Under: Blog, poetry prompt, poetry teaching resources, Reading and Books, writer's group resources, writing prompts

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Comments

  1. Donna Falcone says

    August 15, 2016 at 8:07 am

    Andrew, this poem is wonderful. So happy to see it again. 🙂

    Heather – this dovetails perfectly with thoughts that I’ve had all morning – “Every story, fable, myth, or novel is the result of basic needs: they help us to understand the world, to live, survive, and also to help children grow up and to enrich their development.” I can’t wait to come back to this later!

    Reply
  2. Megan Willome says

    August 15, 2016 at 8:59 pm

    For him: “Guess How Much I Love You.”

    For her: “Madeline.”

    Every night, for a year.

    Reply
    • Monica Sharman says

      August 16, 2016 at 10:54 am

      “In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines …”

      Reply
    • Donna Falcone says

      August 16, 2016 at 11:40 am

      Awww melting…. that Little Nutbrown Hare is a special little guy in my heart. 😉

      Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 17, 2016 at 7:49 pm

      The dearest books! I’m sure you know them by heart.

      Reply
  3. Donna Falcone says

    August 16, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    Nicholas convinced me
    to secretly seek
    red doors on hollow trees
    and bunnies living inside.

    (I Am A Bunny, Richard Scarry, was our youngest son’s favorite story for a long, long time…. my husband still remembers all the words, I think!)

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 17, 2016 at 7:52 pm

      How sweet! I hope you both always seek little red doors.

      Reply
  4. Monica Sharman says

    August 16, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    Little Golden Read-Alouds

    Seven-inch floppy record picked
    from my Little Golden stack, settled
    into the plastic turntable, knob clicked
    to forty-five rpm, needle feeling
    the groove, and I was read to: Scuffy
    the Tugboat, Tawny Scrawny Lion,
    red-nosed Rudolph. When the record
    played a “pong” I knew it meant:
    turn the page now, there’s more
    to the story.

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 17, 2016 at 7:53 pm

      I remember those records! They told wonderful stories.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Reading & Books Prompt: Lose Yourself in a Book - says:
    August 22, 2016 at 8:00 am

    […] to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s a poem from Donna we […]

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