Nursery Rhymes Aren't Just for Grandmas!

Generation X has seemed to distance themselves from the good, old-fashioned nursery rhyme. Jack and Jill, Little Bo Peep, and the cow that jumped over the moon are vague characters to many students I see entering kindergarten. While the stories may be antiquated and lack the CGI animation today's millennium children crave, important emerging literacy skills are learned from repeated exposure to nursery rhymes.

Rhyming is an early literacy skill that helps students learn about the sounds within words and, later, word families that can be used when attempting to decode or spell an unknown word. As easy as rhyming seems, we are actually starting to see a declining trend in rhyming ability as assessed in kindergarten literacy screening in the fall. Teaching nursery rhymes at home  can help your child prepare for rhyming tasks that are essential to learning how to read and write.

Many nursery rhymes have been set to tunes, and their verses can be used as lyrics for a fun sing-along! Caroline and I enjoy singing "Hey Diddle Diddle" and "Jack and Jill" in the car. Now that she is familiar with the rhymes and can recite them with me, I often do what teachers call a "cloze" activity with the rhymes: While reciting or singing the nursery rhyme, I stop and allow her to "fill in the blank" when it comes to the rhyming pairs. For example, I might sing, "Hey Diddle Diddle, the cat and the _______" and allow her to complete the rhyming pair. Or, I might say, "Jack and _____ went up the _____ to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell ____ and broke his ____ and Jill came tumbling after," allowing time for her to complete each line by filling in the correct rhyme. If you need some ideas for nursery rhymes, I love the "Webbing Into Literacy's Rhyme-A-Week" series with downloadable rhyme cards, rhyming picture cards, and riddle rhymes. These can be downloaded and printed for free. I have made binders with all of the materials for use in my classroom, but they tend to matriculate home every couple of months because Caroline loves "reading" the picture cards and figuring out the rhymes.

I also work on rhyming with Caroline at the grocery store, while waiting for our food to arrive at a restaurant, or any other time I need to keep her occupied by playing "Rhyme Tag." I say a word, and then she identifies a word that rhymes, then I identify another word that rhymes, and so on until we run out of rhyming words. For example:

Mommy: Cat
Caroline: Hat
Mommy: Sat
Caroline: Bat

We like to count how many rhyming words we can come up with before we have to start a new list. It's an easy way to pass the time while also working on developing important literacy skills!