Institute for Excellence in Writing - Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization Review

We all have those poems and nursery rhymes that we remember from childhood.  We did our best to sing them to our own kids hoping they would love them as much as we did, and even sing them to their kids someday.  How many remember memorizing the Gettysburg Address when they were in school?  How many out there still encourage memorization in their own homeschool?  We recently had the opportunity to review the Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization curriculum from Institute for Excellence in Writing.

Memorization is great brain exercise.  This exercise allows all the different areas of your brain to work together.  As great as it is for us to memorize, this art appears to be lost.  The importance of poetry also seems to be being set aside. A love of poetry at an early age can actually help children as they grow to love the classics and even can gain a great understanding o f religious works.   The poetry style does not always need to be serious, it can be funny and enjoyable also.

Institute for Excellence in Writing has put together a great program to help out parents with this skill.  The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization 

We received The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization ($65.00) with a printed Teacher's Manual, Student Pages downloadable/printable pdf, a cd set that features reading of each level of poems, and 7 mp3 downloads along with a seminar cd featuring Andrew Pudewa speaking about the importance of Nurturing Competent Communicators.  All the cds arrive in a nice cd holder to keep them together neatly and safe.  We did receive a printed copy of the Student Workbook for our review.  The set that you purchase include a downloadable PDF of the Student Pages.  You can purchase a printed copy of the Student Pages ($19.00) for an additional fee.

This program has been created for students in Kindergarten through high school.  Featuring 5 different levels that can grow with your child, each level contains appropriate poetry that you can match up with your child's current level and abilities.  There are also a Certificates of Completion that you can issue to them as they graduates on to the level.  Give them a reward for their accomplishment.

Each level of The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization builds off of previous levels.  So if you do start at Level One, and even older children will have fun learning Ooey Gooey, there is even a maintenance schedule included so that even as your child grows or takes a little time off, they can maintain the progress that they have made.

The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization can be used with multiple students in your home since the Institute for Excellence in Writing has a generous policy of allowing families to copy the student pages for use within their own family.

How did the program work for us?

The girls enjoy poetry.  Last year they took a class online to learn how to write simple poetry.  They started at Level One since they both have memory problems.  The directions for Getting Started are included in the start of each level, and include a chart to mark to mark off each poem that you have memorized for easy tracking.

We practiced daily, and Ooey Gooey (the first poem) seemed to be very easy for them to remember.  Included in your purchase of The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization set are the audio cds of the poems.  So your student can also listen to the poem.  It is encouraged that you do this daily.

The girls actually began making improvement.  Lydia surprised herself.  She was remembering the poems very quickly.  Even the boys were getting into the poems in the first level.  They were quite fun.  We were able to work half-way through level 1 during our review period.  The longer the poem, the more frustrated they got.  So we are still working on Poem 5.  The audio cds were actually a big benefit.  I was skeptical about the need for them.  But we were easily able to practice their poems in the van as we were traveling to events, so my skepticism about the cds went away very quickly.

The process of practicing daily has paid off.  The program encourages students to not only practice the current poem they are learning, but all the poems they have learned up to that point.  This is where the program continues to build on top of each other.

We have enjoyed using The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization set for the past few weeks and we will continue to use it in the future.  It has even encouraged the girls to write more of their own poetry....another win!

Several members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew were given the opportunity to try out The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization from Institute for Excellence in Writing.  Take some time to read how this program worked in their homes by visiting the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.