Find the Time for the Rhyme

Dr. Wendy Ghiora – Posting #67 – September 25, 2010



Why do kids love nursery rhymes? Could it be because they are sprinkled with adventure, or that they spark a child’s imagination? Is it that children innately enjoy the sound and the feel of rhyme and rhythm? Do nursery rhymes fill them with wonder? Is it because rhymes are teaching tools (oops, let’s keep that our little secret)? Or is it because nursery rhymes are just plain fun? Whatever the reason, we do know, nursery rhymes fill children with curiosity and therefore, with a desire to learn that will continue for a lifetime.

Tony Stead, senior national literacy consultant for Mondo Publishing in New York, in response to research that showed, in 1945, the average elementary school student had a vocabulary of 10,000 words, while today’s child has only 2,500, said:



"That is disastrous," Mr. Stead said. "So many parents are not reading to their children anymore." A lot of problems,” he added, “come from children not memorizing rhymes, the bread-and-butter of traditional early children's literature. Listening comprehension precedes reading comprehension," Mr. Stead said. "In order for a child to understand what they are reading, they have to be able to hear the language first. A lot of the traditional rhymes, such as 'Jack and Jill' and 'Humpty Dumpty,' were repetitious and allowed us to memorize basic structures and patterns in the English language, and then put it together. It's important that young children learn to memorize through verse. This is a powerful time to teach them to be readers and writers "Rhyme is important in developing phonemic [hearing] awareness in children," he said.

A typical nursery rhyme has simple vocabulary and a catchy rhyme:
Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said, “What a good boy I am!”

Some nursery rhymes are also songs. Children can quickly learn to sing along with a nursery rhyme, while at the same time increasing their vocabulary. Since counting is often integrated into a nursery rhyme (i.e. Five Little Ducks) as well, children can also start to learn to count using nursery rhymes. In addition, when a child learns a nursery rhyme, he or she can also learn to follow it on the page, and many children learn the fundamentals of reading this way.



Nursery rhymes have been used in early childhood education for years because it provides young children with a fun and exciting way to learn about math, letters, opposites, position words and other important concepts. But there are other reasons we should do nursery rhyme activities with our children. Here are a few reasons why.





Nursery rhymes encourage parent reading out loud
One of the most important reasons for doing nursery rhyme activities with your children is that they encourage you to read to them which in turn will show them how enjoyable reading is. But nursery rhyme activities are also good to help children read later on in life. They do this because they teach children about words that rhyme and silly words. Through hearing the sounds of the words your children will become enthralled with nursery rhymes.



Nursery rhymes teach memorization
Because nursery rhymes are read again and again, the activity teaches memorization through repetition. Memorization is a skill that will come in handy in just about every subject in school. Most nursery rhyme activities require you to say the nursery rhyme over and over again which will help your child memorize those words and if you are reading them from a piece of paper your child will soon learn to recognize certain words by sight, and they will be ahead of their class once they get started in school.



Quality time with your children
This reason has nothing directly to do with learning. However, it may be the best reason to do nursery rhyme activities. It allows you to spend time with your children and by spending time with your children you are showing them that they are important to you. Today’s world has become so fast paced that spending time with our children has stopped being a priority. It used to be that every child knew their nursery rhymes before they went to school because their parents spent time teaching them to their children. But now, for various reasons, many parents leave all the teaching up to other people. By doing nursery rhyme activities with your child you will be showing them they are the most important part of your life!





Children seem naturally drawn to poetry - it's some combination of the rhyme, rhythm, and the words themselves.
Jack Prelutsky