If you’re happy and you know it, learn your nursery rhymes!
By Tia Pearce - Speech Pathologist
We all have our favourite, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Ring a RIng a Roses or Baa Baa Black Sheep. We sing them to our children to put them to sleep, to enjoy a moment together or keep everyone occupied on a car ride.
Parents, loved ones and children have been singing songs together for as long as we know. The oldest recorded nursery rhyme was Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake written down in 1648!
But did you know they also teach your child so many things?
Nursery Rhymes support children to build their;
Phoneme awareness; hearing the different sounds of our language and learning to pronounce them. This supports children to improve and learn new speech sounds.
Awareness of Rhyme; which supports them in their spelling and reading for their literacy skills
Nursery rhymes support children to hear syllables which we know supports reading and spelling
Concept words such as ‘big/little’, ‘high/low’, ‘after/before’ often in nursery rhymes. Children learn through these songs the meaning of concept words and their association with others words such as; Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Row Row Row your boat gently down the stream. Hopefully this means next time you ask your child to “bring me your little bag” or “ play gently with your brother” they will be able to comprehend those very important concept words. Supporting them with their Following Directions skills.
Social Skills; singing together encourages collaborative interactions, turn taking and sharing communication
Memory; children learn to memorise information, an important skill in life.
Sequencing; nursery rhymes introduce children to stories with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Increase Vocabulary; Nursery rhymes expose children to words we may not use each day such as ‘bare’ in Old Mother Hubbard, ‘speckled’ in Five Little Speckled Frogs, ‘spout’ in I’m a little teapot.
Supports developing a child’s sense of humour and imagination
Language; they expose children to communication to understand and explain; what happened first/second, why we are doing something and the consequences of actions.
What happened: Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the Cupboard,
Why: To give the poor Dog a bone;
What happened: When she came there,
The Cupboard was bare,
Consequence: And so the poor Dog had none
And if you are in need of a few new songs, so you don't have to keep singing Baby Shark on repeat, you can see a full list here.