What is your thought on teaching or not teaching nursery rhymes? It was brought to my attention about not teaching nursery rhymes requested by a family. What do you think about teaching nursery rhymes. Do you oppose or approve?
I’ve never tried to teach them.
Several of my friends who are speech pathologists have stressed over and over to me how important rhyming is for young children. It’s supposed to play a big role in phonemic awareness and learning to read. I think it’s also supposed to just be fun. Here’s a short article I just googled about ryhme - http://www.buzzle.com/articles/learning-read-rhyme-important.html .
Hi Mother of Faith,
Are you asking about rhyming or TRADITIONAL nursery rhymes? As a kindergarten teacher I NEVER taught the traditional nursery rhymes - mainly because I thought that they were the rhymes that mom and dad knew and that they could do at home, also because I, personally, find them boring. I always did ALOT with rhyming though. ALOT. As TheyCan stated, rhyming is very, very important so whatever you can do with rhymes is great.
That said, I came home from the library with a Mother Goose book the other day and my 21 month old can’t get enough of it! So, I’m reading Humpty Dumpty, Sing a song of Sixpence, and Hey Diddle Diddle four to five times a day! (Why do kids gravitate to things you don’t like???)
Kizudo
I think it’s helpful to teach/sing nursery rhymes with children because it helps them understand rhyming and used properly, can also extend their vocabulary. I also introduced my daughter to certain famous poems from an early age like Macavity by TS Elliot, The Tiger by William Blake, The Friendly Cow by RLS and Shakespeare etc.
By the time she was one, she was making up her own words to songs or changing the words of nursery rhymes to suit her mood. I was so pleasantly surprised and that convinced me that exposing them to such things is very useful. She always used to make up her own words to “Are you sleeping Brother John” like “I dont want to sleep, I dont want to sleep, I want to play, I want to play, Rain rain go away, I dont want to sleep”. It didnt always make sense though!
Incidentally, another useful thing you can do is teach a nursery rhyme like Jack and Jill and then make flashcards of rhyming words associated with it i.e. words that rhyme with ‘Jill’ like dill, pill, fill, till, bill and use pictures so the child knows what the words mean.
Wow! By the time she was one???!!! How often were you reading rhymes to her?? Very impressive!
Hi!!
I think is important to teach them nursery rhymes but not just singing, also making some movements that can help them to learn actions and associate words, for example jumping, touching hands, making faces, etc, and also it’s a great activity that make a better relationship with kids
Thank you all for your replies. I like teaching the nursery rhymes for fun and I add a file folder game that comes from www.kizclub.com in while singing. I think that it does help learning to read, to go along with the word families as well. Thank you all for the great info and ideas. I even like doing sequencing cards as well. As a child I loved getting Mother Goose books from my dad. He brought me a different one home all the time from a local book factory here in my home town. They donated books just about every month to where my dad worked. I loved getting those books. I wish I still had them. A tornado this summer took all of my child hood stuff.
My favorite nursery rhyme book is by Mary Engelbreit. You can view it on my blog. I also love other poetry as well and have put together a list of my favorite books. Poetry is very important for babies and children to be familiar with as it helps with language and vocabulary development.
I was told by several teaching experts dealing with speech that teaching nursery rhymes is an essential tool. The library group that I took Colin to taught all the infants nursery rhymes and said that a child that could recite 8 nursery rhymes by the time they were two would do well in school. I hope that requirement is different for boys because Colin was lucky to be speaking at two let alone reciting 8 nursery rhymes.
http://www.isd300.k12.mn.us/ES/kinder/KINDERGARTEN%20INFORMATION/nursery%20rhymes%20handout.pdf
Dear TheyCan,
My daughter learned to talk at 9 months much to our shock! However, she was a very late crawler and walker - she didn’t crawl till after her first birthday and didnt walk till she was 1 yrs and 4months. I think all her development was expended in talking! As for how often I sang nursery rhymes to her - everyday once or twice. Not more than that. Babies have an incredible memory. Even if your child cant talk yet, he will surprise you when he starts and will probably know all those nursery rhymes by heart even if you only told him once a day.
when we were on the intensive program at the institutes in phili my daughter was really doing great with the intellectual program , she could read by 2 . her reading program was very advanced , by five she was reading all her poi by herself . at one of the appointments our intellectual staff asked me if i read nursery rhymes for my daughter , that her reading material shouldn’t necessary all be advanced and sophesticated and could be just fun what a five years old enjoys .
love
viv
I feel its good if child enjoys.when he was in 9th month he used give reactions for rhymes like five little monkey means,he shakes his head as no,no,no…and tells ba,ba,ba for ba,ba,black sheep and open his mouth for jony,jony yes papa.now (15 mth) he is doing lot of actions for rhymes.I feel its good for physical and mental development.