I remember when I was a child, almost every family around my home was teaching children to read and recite poems, but now many parents think that it is useless for children to recite poems if they can't read them.
Some people even say that it is "cramming education" for children to recite ancient poems, which will "hurt" their brains!
So, is it good or bad to recite ancient poems from childhood, is it necessary?
Children can't recite ancient poems if they don't understand them?
The answer is of course: yes!
Ancient poetry is a very particular language art, with particular emphasis on images, phonology and tone.
Many ancient poems will be accompanied by music in the program "Classical Ode", and can be sung without changing the words.
Therefore, ancient poetry is a musical text. Even if children can't understand the meaning of poetry for a while, they can remember it as easily as learning children's songs, and the more they read, the better their sense of language will be.
Moreover, children who recite ancient poems from childhood generally have the following advantages, and they will not learn well in the future.
First, a better sense of Chinese.
Language sense is the ability of children to understand, experience, analyze and express a certain language.
Harold Burt, a child psychologist, did an experiment. The experimenter selected a group of English-speaking children aged 2-3 and asked them to recite Hebrew poems every day.
After a period of time, the experiment was suspended and the children were no longer exposed to Hebrew.
When these children were 7-8 years old, the experimenter began to teach them to learn Hebrew and another brand-new language. The results show that the speed of children learning Hebrew is obviously one-third faster than that of learning another foreign language.
This shows that the sense of language is a subconscious ability, even if you forget the specific language, you can still retain the sense of language.
Children who recite ancient poems from childhood are exposed to more beautiful words and expressions, and the accumulated sense of Chinese language will be better.
Such children will not only learn Chinese better in the future, but also read books with Chinese characters faster.
Second, the memory is stronger.
Ancient poetry is a kind of writing form with strong sense of rhythm, catchy and easy to remember.
When children recite ancient poems from childhood, the brain regions related to memory will get more exercise, and children will have more advantages in memory in the future.
Third, there are advantages in reading and music.
The rhythm of ancient poetry not only strengthens children's sense of language, but also strengthens their reading ability and musical ability when listening, reading and reciting ancient poetry.
An experiment was conducted at Bangor University in England to study the different effects of common words and rhythmic poems on children's brains.
Experiments have found that when children read poetry, a specific brain wave will appear in the brain to stimulate the brain areas related to reading and music. When reading ordinary words, the brain does not have such brain waves.
Under this influence, children who recite ancient poems from childhood will have more advantages in reading comprehension and music in the future.