Charlotte Mason + Poetic Reading Lessons

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In this post, I’m sharing about how we approach reading lessons in our classical Charlotte Mason homeschool. This approach also includes lessons in the poetic mode.

Charlotte Mason’s reading lessons, especially in the early years (ages 6–8), are gentle, gradual, and connected to the child’s love of language and story.

And this approach has led to some pretty voracious readers in our home! They have a serious love of reading, but not just for consuming large quantities of books, they thoroughly enjoy reading and have a true appetite for stories. 🫶

📚 Reading Lessons in the Classical Charlotte Mason Method

This year, I have my final student beginning reading lessons. And after testing a variety of other methods over the years, we’ve been happy with a combination of Charlotte Mason’s method and the poetic mode of reading in our home.

In this post, I will break down what this reading instruction looks like, plus some ideas for including the poetic mode into your reading lessons. And lastly, I’ll have a sample weekly reading lesson plan.

This approach may not work for every home and situation, but I encourage you to give it a try. It’s such a beautiful way to approach reading!

“Let the child alone, and he will learn the alphabet for himself: but few mothers can resist the pleasure of teaching it; and there is no reason why they should, for this kind of learning is no more than play to the child, and if the alphabet be taught to the little student, his appreciation of both form and sound will be cultivated. When should he begin? Whenever his box of letters begins to interest him. The baby of two will often be able to name half a dozen letters; and there is nothing against it so long as the finding and naming of letters is a game to him. But he must not be urged, required to show off, teased to find letters when his heart is set on other play.

– Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p 201-202

And by this, Mason is encouraging mothers in masterly inactivity.

She means don’t hound the child, or urge him to learn before he is ready. By leaving a box of letters for his leisure, the young child will be curious and naturally will be inclined to learn. Personally, I’ve found this true for each of my children.

Key Principles of Charlotte Mason’s Reading Lessons

Charlotte Mason gives a lot of instruction on reading lessons in Home Education. You can find all of this information in pages 207-222 of that volume.

Start with the spoken word:

Mason emphasized rich oral language from infancy; nursery rhymes, fairy tales, Scripture, poetry. All of these begin building a child’s ear and love for words before ever teaching reading.

But don’t allow this to discourage you if you’re new to this method. Begin now with building a love of rich language by introducing more family read aloud time.

Read sacred & noble texts — and even before fluency, let the child be immersed in the noblest language possible. And make early reading embodied and tied to real experience. Pairing words with direct experiences builds the connection between language and wonder.

Reading lessons are not explicit spelling lessons. However, they will learn to spell naturally through these reading lessons. And through copywork and dictation lessons later (form 2), as children copy beautiful sentences or poetry, they internalize spelling, grammar, and sentence structure, which supports both reading and writing.

Related: The Foundations of Language Arts in a Classical Charlotte Mason Education

Teach phonics through meaningful words

Instead of isolated drills, phonics are introduced through words the child sees in living books, rhymes, and Scripture. For example, in a lesson, a child might read a simple sentence like “The cat sat on a mat” and then practice forming the words with letter tiles, learning to read and spell naturally.

And we would continue on with other ‘at’ words during our reading lesson on a different day.

Reading lessons are also kept short, about 20 minutes each day. Mason warned against taxing the young mind. Lessons are brief, pleasant, and consistent.

“Early Spelling.––Accustom him from the first to shut his eyes and spell the word he has made. This is important. Reading is not spelling, nor is it necessary to spell in order to read well; but the good speller is the child whose eye is quick enough to take in the letters which compose it, in the act of reading off a word, and this is a habit to be acquired from the first: accustom him to see the letters in the word, and he will do without effort.

– Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p 203

Use reading by sight alongside phonics

Children learn to recognize whole words (especially common ones) by sight as they begin to read real sentences and books and not just phonics readers. This reflects Mason’s belief that reading is a whole act: decoding and understanding must come together.

📚 Teaching Reading in the Poetic Mode of Education

Now we come to reading lessons in the poetic mode and how we can pair this with Charlotte Mason’s method.

The poetic mode, as described by classical educators like John Senior and James Taylor, is not about poetry, but about a sacramental view of reality. It’s about awakening wonder, intuition, and the moral imagination through images, rhythms, and living experiences.

New to the poetic mode of education? Check out this post: What is an Education in Wonder? A Guide to the Poetic Mode

So, how does this relate to learning to read?

✨ Teaching Reading Poetically

Children are immersed in the beautiful before they analyze the functional. Rhymes, lullabies, and sacred Scripture are not just “pre-reading skills”, they form the child’s imaginative sense.

Children should meet words as living things — through images, stories, songs, and rhythms. This keeps their learning tied to concrete experience, and not to detached decoding.

Stories awaken a desire to read. When a child hears delightful fairy tales or heroic lives of saints, they naturally want to enter that world — and learning to read becomes a joyful quest. Rather than teaching children to read just to “get through” material, we teach them to read so they can dwell with beauty, truth, and virtue. The act of reading becomes contemplative.

Even early readers can carry rich ideas. A sentence like “The sun is hot” or “God made the stars” introduces not only language, but awe and reverence for creation. Choose early reading materials that are noble, simple, and true.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star book by Jerry Pinkney

📖 Example of a Poetic Reading Lesson:

Let’s imagine a reading lesson with a 6-year-old. Here’s how we begin our reading lessons. We will begin by reciting (or singing) a nursery rhyme together:

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star…”

Then, I show her the written words from the first line and gently guide her to recognize “twinkle” and “star”. And not just by sounding them out, but by connecting the image, sound, and meaning.

I would have also prepped the lesson ahead of time by writing the words on small blank index cards or cut out scraps of paper.

She might then form the words we just read with letter tiles or wooden letters. We would also search for the words from the cut out papers I’ve pre-made.

Then I would write them on the chalk board and have her read the columns of words written (forward and backward) until she has a solid grasp of each word.

From here, we would write each word learned in her book of words (simple composition notebook for all words learned in a lesson).

Sample weekly reading lesson plan

This is an example based off of a child around age 6-7 (form 1b or year 1), just beginning to read. Again, in this example, we’ll use the poem “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

• Daily time: 20 minutes
• Frequency: 4 days per week (Charlotte Mason typically used 4 reading lessons/week, leaving the 5th day for reading aloud or copywork review). On our timetable, I reserve the 5th day for family read-aloud time.

Day 1: Introduce a short passage or sentence from a poem, nursery rhyme, or Scripture. Identify and read 3-5 sight words. Remember to use something beautiful (again this example: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”). 

Point out “twinkle” and “star.” Read them aloud. Write the newly learned words into the child’s book of words. If they are good at letter formation, allow the student to copy this down themselves.

Add in star gazing at night to tie in with poetic knowledge.

Day 2: Review book of words. Choose 2-3 key words from day 1 (example: twinkle, little, star) and have the student build them with letter tiles or wooden letters and blend similar words. Word family practice, compare: star / car / jar / far, etc. Write new words learned in the child’s book of words.

Day 3: Review child’s book of words. Reread sentence from day 1. Child reads it aloud, then rearranges words by using prepared word cards to recreate it. Or they may build a new sentence. Sometimes I will choose certain words for the child to ‘hunt’ for in a chosen passage from poetry or nursery rhymes.

“The child should hunt through two or three pages of good clear type for ‘little,’ ‘star,’ ‘you,’, ‘are,’ each of the words he has learned, until the word he knows looks out upon him like the face of a friend in a crowd of strangers, and he is able to pounce upon it anywhere”

– Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p 205

Day 4: Review book of words. The child copies part of the sentence (even just 2-3 words) in their copywork book. Focus on form letters beautifully. Recite the sentence together. Eventually, we will also include time for primer reading and practice.

Day 5: Family read-aloud.

Now, these lessons do change over time and this is just an example for a very beginner. If the child already has a grasp of the words early, we will review the words and then may move on to another section of the poem or rhyme during the week. Or we may use a completely new poem entirely. All is dependent on the student’s attainment of the words.

Early reading ideas in the Poetic Mode of Education

These ideas help foster a sense of delight, mystery, and connection with the world, supporting reading in a way that honors the poetic mode.

Begin with beauty:

• Read the Psalms aloud daily as a family (“The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands” -Psalm 18:2). As Catholics, we prefer the Douay-Rheims edition of the Bible and it has such beautiful and poetic language.
• Chant psalms or lines from Scripture daily.
• Simple poetry for little ones (Christina Rossetti, A.A. Milne, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc.)
• Traditional nursery rhymes (Mother Goose, English folk rhymes)
• Favorite prayers or lines from the Mass
• Sing simple hymns or folk songs that include key words
• Later, write the lyrics and use them as copywork or reading sentences

Let the child hear the rhythm and music of words before dissecting them. To be clear, we don’t analyze in the poetic mode.

A few of our favorites:

• Discover Reading by Amy Tuttle
• Sing-Song by Christina Rossetti
• Catholic Nursery Rhymes
• Mother Goose’s Melodies
• Tasha Tudor’s Mother Goose
• Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes
• Ring O’ Roses
• Edward Lear’s Nonsense Omnibus (includes nonsense alphabets)

We’ve used different notebooks for the child’s book of words. A simple copywork book like this or one of these composition notebooks works well.

In Conclusion

Reading lessons in the classical Charlotte Mason tradition are a harmony of phonics, sight words, and meaningful literature — brief, gentle, and joyful.

Reading in the poetic mode means teaching the child not just to decode words, but to awaken wonder.

Resources for the Mother Teacher

• Home Education by Charlotte Mason 
• The Home Education series by Charlotte Mason
• Favorite notebooks for book of words, narrations, copywork, and dictation
• American Cardinal Readers 
• Fairytales, Fables, Legends, and Myths in a Catholic Education
• Musical Education in the Classical Homeschool
• Awakening a Sense of Wonder in the Mother Teacher
• An Education in Wonder + Changes to our Homeschool