The Power of the Nursery Rhyme – Rhyming
by Serena Merry (Miss Merry)
What was your favourite nursery rhyme growing up?
If you’re like me, born in the 80s like the book featured here, then you’ll remember the classics like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Humpty Dumpty (can you see the handsome egg dressed Bridgerton style?) and Hey Diddle Diddle (I always thought it bizarre to imagine a cow jumping over the moon!) Nursery rhymes not only gave us something fun to sing about but they also taught us some of the basic skills we needed to learn how to read.
We all know that most nursery rhymes have words that rhyme. However, did you know that identifying words that rhyme is a basic introduction to phonemic awareness (Harper, 2011)? Phonemic awareness is an understanding and manipulation of the patterns that exist within our spoken language and therefore written language (reading and writing).
So, when reading or reciting nursery rhymes with young children (including modelling actions and discussing the meaning of vocabulary words) it is worthwhile to talk about the words that rhyme (spoken only).
The information in the images below can be used to support your discussions about nursery rhymes with children.
P.s. My favourite nursery rhyme was in fact Humpty Dumpty (HD), mostly because I loved the tune to HD, however it was the images in this family book that had me hooked. Each character truly embodied the emotions expressed in each rhyme or story.
Serena Merry 