Why are nursery rhymes important in early childhood?

Jump on the bandwagon if you can remember your childhood nursery rhymes. Have you ever wondered why you still remember some of the popular nursery rhyme songs like “Twinkle Twinkle little star”  and “Row Row Row your boat” today without even referring to their lyrics? Well, it’s not only because of the catchy tune.

We remember nursery rhyme songs because they have a lot of repetition, alliteration, rhythm, and rhyme in every song. Children remember rhymes because the words and phrases are easier to remember and they start associating similar-sounding words and their meanings. 

Why are nursery rhymes important in early childhood?

Before the TV era, nursery rhymes were usually passed down through generations by word of mouth as lullabies to calm a baby. Today, children’s nursery rhymes pave the way for developing early language, communication, and fine motor skills.

Nursery rhymes can help your child build their vocabulary, and learn the association between words and meanings. They also aid in building a strong foundation for literacy skills. Your little one develops more vocabulary words through repetition. Repetition in nursery rhymes helps children hear the same word repeatedly, which can help them recall what they just heard.

Some nursery rhyme songs use numbers. As your child is exposed to similar nursery rhymes, they see the patterns and repetitions and start learning the concept of numbers.

Also read: Support your child’s preschool curriculum at home | Easy ways

How do nursery rhymes help early childhood development?

Nursery rhymes can help children in early childhood in four main ways: developing language and communication skills, social and emotional skills, physical development, literacy and numeracy skills.

Language and Communication Skills

• New vocabulary words are introduced when they hear a new word in the rhyme and learn how to articulate it.
• Nursery rhymes teach children sequence as they tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• Rhymes have familiar patterns, so it’s easier for children to recall the words.
• Children hear nursery rhymes and practice pitch and voice inflection. This tells them that there’s a different tone when one’s asking a question and a different tone when one tells a story.

Social and Emotional Development

• When parents and children sing nursery rhymes together, it can help develop a special bond between them.
• Funny nursery rhymes can help children develop a sense of humor.
• Nursery rhymes contain different emotions. This can help your little one identify their emotions and feelings and learn to become empathetic.
• When asked to enact the story of a nursery rhyme, the child may use their emotions, creativity, and imagination to express themselves.

Literacy and Numeracy Skills

• Children become aware of phonological terms like “hat” and “cat.”
• As children become aware of the sequence and patterns in nursery rhymes, it builds their foundation of reading skills
• The frequent use of numbers in rhymes can help your little one be exposed to numerals. They start to add as they count forward and subtract as they count backward.
• Rhymes like “The Three Bears” can help children become aware of math-related words to define a few concepts like a few, many, less, and so on.

Physical Development

• Many nursery rhymes, like “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “If You’re Happy And You Know It,” involve actions and steps for children to follow throughout the song. This, in turn, can help them develop their fine motor skills.
• When children try to sing and enunciate words from nursery rhymes, it can help strengthen their mouth and tongue muscles.

We all loved listening and tuning in to nursery rhymes growing up, and so do our children. It can be quite beneficial to encourage children to learn more nursery rhymes as they have so several benefits in early childhood development. 

Source:

Bryant, P. E., Bradley, L., Maclean, M., & Crossland, J. (2009, February 17). Nursery rhymes, phonological skills and reading* | Journal of Child Language | Cambridge Core. Cambridge Core. https://doi. org /10.1017 /S03 0500 0900 0104 85