Why rhymes and songs are so important in the early years

_Elsa_

A couple of days later Tiffi goes back to the library hoping to see the old elf. Much to her surprise she meets up with an older man who is leaning on the Mother Goose nursery rhymes book. She goes up to him and asks if he has seen the old elf at all. 

“Oh are you referring to the elf who I shared all my nursery rhymes knowledge with?” asks the old man. 

Tiffi is excited to know that this person knows the elf. She asks him if he knows why the majority of the Mother Goose nursery rhymes had such negative interpretations related to history from a long time ago. 

“I can’t tell you why,” the old man says. “But I can say that I am happy that the children can learn about them and recite them without knowing the meanings. Let me share with you the importance of children learning these rhymes. It does outweigh the history facts.” 

‘Nursery rhymes and songs are wonderful! Not just because they are fun and engaging for young children, but because they can make a real difference to children’s language and literacy. Research suggests that children who have a good understanding of rhyme do better in their literacy than children who have poor skills in this area. 

Rhythm - Nursery rhymes and songs often have an easy to spot, regular rhythm to them. From “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle…” to “Mary, Mary, quite contrary…”. These rhythms can help children’s listening skills – they are the foundations of the careful listening needed for developing clear speech; children pick up the patterns of speech and benefit from hearing the repetition of sounds. 

Rhyme and repetition - Rhyme helps children begin to recognise patterns in words and to discriminate between different sounds – Wall and Fall, skills needed in the future when sounding out words for reading. Children can begin to play around with words and rhymes themselves and recognise what happens to a word when a sound changes, like adding St to ar. They are practising important skills when playing with rhymes and songs and having fun along the way. 

Activity - Many nursery rhymes and songs have their own actions that can help with engaging children. Most children enjoy the combination of music and action. Many children who struggle to listen, benefit enormously from actions linked to rhymes. It encourages them to take part, engaging them in repetitive songs and rhymes, which in turn support their language development. 

Repetition - Children need to hear words a number of times before they really understand the meaning and then use the words as part of their own vocabulary. The joy of nursery rhymes and songs is that they introduce new words, build them into a rhyme and context (which helps children remember them) and then allow children to hear them time and again so they can make sense of the words.’ (Source) 

Tiffi can now understand the importance and she thanks him for sharing all his knowledge with her. Now she’s going to head on over to the community to create a message that National Mother Goose Day is coming up this Saturday. Maybe some of the community members want to share their favorite nursery rhymes with each other. 

The End!

Start at the beginning – The story of Mother Goose