It's all about the rhythm

I help out in Chance's school a few times a month and this week as I sat in reading, an interesting question was posed to me.

The class was going over poetry and the rhythms of different verse. The kids were listening to dicern where the emphasis is in poems and which syllable gets the accent.

The teacher came to me and asked how well Chance could hear the differences in the slight variations in the poems.

That was a good question. I told her that Chance actually hears really well and she said that when she had asked him which syllable gets the accent in a line of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", he got it right.

I have not thought of this before. For me, the little rhyming sing-song cadence of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", has just been a part of life since childhood. It seems I have always known that poem and its sing-song rhythm.

But what about for Chance? He wasn't hearing the subtle differences when he was little so I wonder how this poem plays out in his brain?

His little brother can already recite much of this little Christmas classic simply because of the sing-song verses and the rhyming.

Chance seems to be getting the accenting and metering fine, but I don't know that he has the same little ditty that plays through his head as many of us do when he recites this classic poem.
Also, how does he hear the subtle differences in poetry? Does he catch all of the ups and downs in verse?

Now I will have to test this out and see. I want to see if he hears and appreciates the little subtle changes in verse especially when they don't rhyme.