

Teaching Poetry to Children Using Picture Books
Teaching poetry is not every teacher's favourite thing. Find out how poetry benefits your students along with 30 diverse poetry picture books to use in the classroom.
Benefits of Teaching Poetry in the Classroom
What kind of teacher are you? One who can’t wait to teach poetry, or one who dreads it? I was definitely in the latter group until Richard Grant aka the Dreadlock Alien visited my school for a week two years running. His energy, passion and understanding of the impact of poetry helped me see the benefits of it in the classroom.
Find out more about how I organised the Dreadlock Alien’s visit and the impact he made on the students and teachers in the post How to Host a School Poetry Slam.
There are many benefits to reading and teaching poetry in the classroom, including:
- Rhyming helps your students see patterns within words
- Poetry introduces rich vocabulary
- Learning how the right words can create imagery, effect, and meaning
- Making connections to experiences and emotions
- Developing inferring skills and being able to ‘read between the lines’
- Developing listening skills when you read poetry read aloud
- Promoting visualisation skills and encouraging imagination
- Expressing their own opinions confidently as everyone interprets poetry in their own way.
Poetry Books for Children (and adults)
Poets and their Poetry
What Next?
I hope you found some inspiration to support your teaching of poetry. The videos above have a bit of a UK bias as these were poets that came to my mind. If you have any video suggestions of poets reading their poetry, let me know in the comments.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase anything through them, I will get a small referral fee and you will be supporting me and my blog at no extra cost to you, so thank you! You can find more information here.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not share it!

1 thought on “Teaching Poetry to Children Using Picture Books”
Poetry can be amazingly emotive. All things considered, artists, similar to the journalists of the best books ever and best book club books, have an approach to communicating feelings that we probably won’t have the option to really express.