Poetry for Preschoolers

When we Savvy Sourcers say we are big fans of reading poetry to our preschoolers, somehow it comes off sounding almost unbearably highfalutin. But that's not at all what we mean! We mean the fun stuff. The stuff that touches you deeply, or makes you giggle, or widens your eyes -- and by "you," we mean both of you! Marching your little ones through iambic pentameter, this is not. This is playing with words and rhymes and echoes and alliteration. This is laughing our way through a fabulously fun book, one that just happens to be written in verse and therefore ready-made for reading aloud. And it just so happens that drawing children's attention to the sounds that make up words is essential to what the experts call "phonological awareness," which in turn is essential to learning to read. So there you have it. As if you needed any more reason to read poems to your child (or even to write some of your own on the fridge)!

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Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children

We all probably have, somewhere upon our shelves, a weighty anthology of poetry that we last opened when studying for a college English exam. Now that we are parents, it has crossed our minds that our rhyme and rhythm-loving children might enjoy hearing some of those poems that we struggled to parse in English 101. But how to choose? Which ones, of the many thousands? We are lucky indeed that Caroline Kennedy has done the work for us, and given us her selection of favorite poems for children, each beautifully illustrated. No chronological plowing through the centuries here - the poems are arranged according to themes preschoolers know and love: animals and adventure, silliness and seasons, and bedtime of course, among others. But these familiar childhood topics usher in the greatest poets of our language, from Shakespeare to Walt Whitman to Langston Hughes to Sylvia Plath. Reading their words aloud to our little ones is pure pleasure. And small word-sponges that they are, won't our kids be pleased with themselves when it is their turn to take an English exam, and they can conjure William Blake from memories of reading on a parent's lap?

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