National Poetry Day takes place on 5 October. But why teach poetry to children? The reasons are many and diverse, including, of course, developing their reading skills, but in short, poetry allows children the freedom to express themselves. There is no 'right' way to write (or to interpret) a poem; children don't have to adhere to sentence structures or complex English grammar or punctuation rules, and so writing poetry can be an opportunity to build confidence and play with language. Indeed, research conducted by the CLPE in March reported that 88% of teachers say that children enjoy engaging with poetry and 89% reported that children enjoyed listening to it being read or performed. However, despite the importance of poetry in the |English National Curriculum, 61% of teachers have never had CPD on teaching poetry and 79% of classroom book corners have fewer than ten poetry books in their book selection.
