5 Diverse Poetry Books for ELLs
Poetry is a wonderful genre to share with students. For ELLs, it is a great way to expose them to rhyming words and other ways to play with words. Poems are typically short and lend themselves well to being read out loud. This helps build students reading fluency and oral language skills. Poetry is also a way for ELLs to analyze more complex text, even if they are reading below grade level. Poetry is a great opportunity to share books that show a diverse group of people and locations. Here are 5 diverse poetry books to check out.
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Diverse Poetry Books
Bookjoy Wordjoy is a collection of short poems about reasons to love reading and writing. The poems include many examples of figurative language. There are Spanish words sprinkled throughout the poems.
The book With My Hands shows a diverse group of kids doing a wide range of activities with their hands. This includes cooking, painting, and making crafts. This book would pair well with a sequencing activity where students watch a demonstration and write down the sequence of the steps.
Amazing Faces is a collection of short poems. Each poem showcases a different emotion with a diverse group of people. The poems also works well for identifying mood.
In Call Me Tree, a young child compares themself to a tree using descriptive language. The book has bright pictures. Another interesting fact about the book is that the author purposely made it gender neutral. Read her explanation about why.
is a collection of poems that feature diverse children at play. The book has a collection of various types of poems. It also includes free verse and rhyming poems.