Mr. Meerkat’s Poetry for Children series is a literacy program which engages children through the use of poetry. It was published by Reynold Learning in 2020. With its rare Australian flavor, the pedagogical framework for the poetry reflects a constructivist approach to teaching and learning. It encouraging students to actively engage with the content and to construct meaning by drawing connections with their own knowledge and experiences.
The Mr. Meerkat’s Poetry for Children series contains 58 poems presented in 20 poetry readers for primary school and is accompanied by teacher’s companions, online resources, recitals and interactive activities. The series is also available through the Renaissance Learning MyOn site for literacy and reading resources.
The poetry was created using the principles of how children learn[1]. All lesson activities are based on the latest understandings of language development in children[2].
Content:
- Overview
- Emphasis on learning development
- Ontological approach
- Use of word craft and sound
- Narrative tradition
- Pedagogical approach
- Poetry resources
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Overview
The Mr. Meerkat’s Poetry for Children series was written by Dr Leonard Reynolds and published by Reynold Learning, a registered Australian company since 2012 and in the United Stes since 2019. Prior to writing the Mr. Meerkat series, Leonard Reynolds spent a decade specializing in learning development and helping children with learning difficulties/disorders. In 2009, his program was recognized by the Cambridge-Oxford Universities Oxbridge Guide: Global Educational Skills – Guide to Excellence in Education as one of the top 200 innovative programs in the world. The Mr. Meerkat poetry series arises from Reynolds’ research into improving the neuro-physiological capacity of children. The Mr. Meerkat is Leonard Reynolds’ persona, created in order to present poetry in an attractive format for primary-aged children.
The 20 Readers in Mr. Meerkat series is divided into learning stages because the author believes that children’s learning is developmental and children are all at different cognitive and physiological stages of learning. The progression of the Readers is designed to relate to children’s different abilities and perceptions of the world. The program caters for both the high and low performing groups in every class and accordingly, offers ‘just-right challenge’ opportunities for children in each learning stage. As the series progresses, more complex and age-appropriate issues are introduced for reflection.
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Emphasis on learning development
The Mr. Meerkat series is based on the principles of how children learn. Over a two year period, Reynolds surveyed the
efficiency of the brain’s sensory integration process with a cohort of 60 children. The premise for the study was that the brain processes and integrates information through its sensors, and is able to plan and organise behaviour in order to make adaptive responses in the ongoing process of learning. The neuro-processing of sensory information of the children in the cohort was stimulated through Reynolds’ therapy and education program. The progress of the students was assessed using recognised neurological and sensory standard tests, with exceptional results[3].
The Meerkat poetry has been created using Reynolds’ findings that learning is a developmental process:
It is a neurological progressive process and a natural process: Children cannot help but learn. Information is received by the brain then
interpreted and then integrated. Children learn through a process of integrating and accumulating information. As something new is accepted,
the brain releases a pleasure chemical, an endorphin, to encourage further learning.
The purpose of the Mr Meerkat poetry is to stimulate the “learning-success process” through the reading of the poetry to promote literacy and have student’s wants to learn more. The Meerkat poetry uses a number of
sensory inputs – humor, rhythm, rhyme, melody, audio and visual, to create connections for neurological integration.
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Ontological approach
The Mr. Meerkat poetry series takes an ontological approach to the construction of the poems. The poet seeks
to express his perceptions, experiences and emotions in words that can be understood by children. He seeks to reach out to others with the desire of invoking a response and appreciation of his poetry. He purposely uses a process of expressing one’s soul (psyche) or being (ontos)
to another person – a process known as ontology.
Mr. Meerkat, the poet, writes to make children laugh or cry, feel happy, sad or thankful. He uses stories or events that children can relate to or have experienced themselves in order to make the ontological
connection and have children take an interest in the word craft of poetry. While most of his poetry in the series is often humorous or even frivolous, he also writes on subjects that encourage children to consider the people and the world around them.
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Use of word craft and sound
The Mr. Meerkat poetry is both word play and a craft. The structure of poetry can be quite technical in its creating of, for example, assonance, consonance, dissonance, euphony and sonic texture. With a background in auditory and visual presentation (radio and television) as well as the arrangement of music and song lyrics, the poet uses the sounds of words to create phonic relationships and seeks to match words with the metre and rhyme. Words as sounds are placed in a unique sequence of sound bites to make a poem. Consonants and vowels are used as sound units to create a sonic texture for each poem.
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Narrative tradition
Mr. Meerkat is a poet and a story teller. He sees stories unfolding around him every day and often sees the funny side of things. His poems are written in the vein of promoting oral tradition – having children enjoy listening to stores set to poetry.
“Through time, people have passed on stories of their history and culture to their children,” Reynolds says. “These oral and literary traditions became fundamental to the self-awareness of a society and help to preserve their lore and ethics. Thus, there has always been a role in society for the storyteller – the ‘Bard’, to use the old English word”. He points out that some stories became theatre or dance routines, but many became poems or were set to music.
While people have read poetry and sung of historical events and their heroes in every culture, Reynolds doesn’t write about heroes and historical events but rather about ordinary experiences and every day events, for children. He believes that adults and children want to hear stories, set to rhyme and rhythm, about life and the world around them.
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Pedagogical approach
The lesson resources and learning activities in the series draw on a constructivist approach to teaching and learning that integrates with the ontological rationale behind the poems themselves[4]. Students are encouraged to actively engage with poetry and reflect on the subject matter. They construct their own meanings, with teacher guidance, by drawing connections with their existing knowledge and experiences, making the poems relevant to their own lives. In this way, their class teacher is a facilitator who provides students with the knowledge, skills and language to engage with poetry and with language more generally.
The Teacher’s Companions and student Activities Books have been constructed for teaching the Meerkat poetry in class. All lessons engage the key elements of literacy progression – speaking and listening, reading and viewing and writing. Content descriptors for interaction with others are met in all lessons, provided the teacher reads the text with/to the class and facilitates discussion through the use of the discussion points.
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Poetry resources
7.1 Poetry readers
There are 20 Readers in the series. The Readers are dived into three reading stages across primary school: Foundation to Grade 2, Grades 3 and 4, and Grades 5 and 6. The selection of poems within each stage level are designed to reflect natural literacy development, as students progress from simple themes and poetic devices to more complex concepts and language features. The Readers in the series include a variety of poetic styles and forms, including free verse, accentual-syllabic verse, limericks, light verse and narrative verse.
7.2 Teacher’s companions
The Teacher’s Companions divide in three books and run in parallel to the three stage levels of the Readers and are crafted to meet curriculum requirements for English. They include cross-curriculum links to other subjects, including Science, HASS, Health and Physical Education, the Arts and Mathematics. Activities draw on the General Capabilities and Cross-Curriculum Priorities embedded in the curriculum. Each poem provides teachers with lesson plans and objectives, technical information about the poem, discussion questions, activities and literacy development exercises.
7.3 Activities books
The Activities Books reflect the contents of the Teacher’s companions without all the notes and resources for teachers.
7.4 Web resources
All the Readers, as slide show and recitals are available as a web resource. All the Teacher’s Companions, with their links to curriculum requirements, as well as the Activities Boks are available online.
References:
[1] Reynolds, L (2009) How do Children Learn? https://reynoldlearning.com/how-do-children-learn/
[2] Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority . (2010-2019). National Literacy Learning Progression [Online] URL: https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/4337/literacy-appendices-1-to-5.pdf
[3] Reynolds, L. (2010) A Study of the Effectiveness of Sensory Integration Therapy on Neuro-Physiological Development, Reynold Learning. https://reynoldlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Research-Study.pdf
[4] Reynolds, L., (2020) Mr. Meerkat’s Poetry for Children Teacher’s Companion: Reading Level Grades 3 and 4, p.4.
https://reynoldlearning.com/research/
https://www.renaissance.com/myon-collections/reynold-learning/?tab=undefined&pn=1
https://reynoldlearning.com/mr-meerkats-poetry/overview-2/
https://reynoldlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Cambridge-Oxford-Reynold-1.pdf
https://reynoldlearning.com/research/
https://reynoldlearning.com/how-do-children-learn/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard
https://reynoldlearning.com/mr-meerkats-poetry/overview-2/
https://reynoldlearning.com/teachers-companions/
https://reynoldlearning.com/samples/