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Nursery Rhymes in Early Childhood Education
Why teach Nursery Rhymes?
There are probably three important reasons why nursery rhymes are so crucial to early childhood education. You could possibly add more !
Children who know nursery rhymes develop a strong sense of well-being. Time passes pleasantly and they "feel good" and are happy with themselves..
Children who know nursery rhymes are overflowing with self-confidence and self-esteem. They are curious and imaginative and can show off their ability to recite or sing a rhyme with deep satisfaction and from memory. The rhymes come alive with the creative use of their voice, eyes, facial expression and body language
Children who have nursery rhymes read or sung to them become effective communicators.
Features of Nursery Rhymes
Nursery rhymes usually have special features such as repetitions, double rhymes, and the possibility of using alternative lyrics.
They use melodic contours in phrases after a series of arch shapes, called anacrusis. Phrases have ascent balanced by a descent; applying the concept of up and down.
Lyrics of nursery rhymes also contain elements of tension and resolution.
There is also power in phrasing as emphasis is often placed in pitch, volume and accent in the beginning, middle or end of a phrase or sentence, the positioning of which changes the meaning.
Rhymes lend themselves naturally to dramatization supporting the meaning with words and actions.
All these help in the formative development of their language skills.
Nursery Rhymes and the Development of Language Skills
Young children often begin to speak English by sharing rhymes with their parents or peers. Nursery Rhymes are the most effective way of rapidly developing a child's vocabulary, grammar, syntax . By playing with the short texts of rhymes, children explore the mechanics of the English language. They find out how language works and become familiar with the relationship between the 44 sounds of English and the 26 alphabet letters – information which will help them when they begin reading to decode the sounds that make up words.
Types of Nursery Rhymes
Nursery rhymes feature huge lists of information that can be used daily: numbers, days of the week, the alphabet, colors, shapes, etc. Here are some simple classifications:
Hello or goodbye themes:
Hi Mary!
How are you?
Fine, thanks.
What about you?
Rhymes with names that can be personalized by changing to family names:
Diddle, diddle dumpling,
My son John,
Went to bed
With his trousers on.
Counting Theme: One Two Buckle my Shoe
Alphabet Theme: ABC song has lyrics of the 24 alphabets
Animal Theme: Old Macdonald had a Farm
Weather Theme : Rain, Rain, Go away
Food Theme: Hot Cross Buns; Peas Porridge Hot
Transportation Theme: Row ,Row ,Row your Boat
....... and you can add many more !
Some Suggested Activities
Flash Cards: Flashcards can be used to introduce words to develop vocabulary acquisition . By placing them in a certain chronological order we can also prod a child to story sequencing.
Hand Puppets: Rhymes such as 'Where is Thumbkin' use finger puppets and lyrics to name the five different fingers.
Rhyme shows: For special occasions like the child's birthday, a rhyme show could allow the child to recite a rhyme or two. Children welcome opportunities to show their skills and the praise received does much to motivate them. The preparation for the show is just as important as it gives children a valid reason to keep practising and revising their pronunciation and performance.
Rhyme Games: Form rhyming words, like 'four', 'door', 'cat','sat' etc.
Rhyme cards and books: Make birthday or celebration cards. Make a book. These self-made materials will inspire children to write their own rhymes and encourage them in creative writing.
Links to Aesthetic and Musical Development
Nursery Rhymes have shown to have a positive effect on a child's aesthetic and musical sensitivity. Most nursery rhymes usually start off as a short tune which the children can easily sing and memorize. Thus early musical training can also be easily and simultaneously incorporated seamlessly into their language literacy programme.
Written by Mr Thomas Tan
Master Trainer and Lecturer
Promoting Language & Literacy Through Music
Promoting Language & Literacy Through Music
Do you remember singing nursery rhymes and simple songs from childhood? If the first part of a familiar melody and song text is given, most of us will finish singing the song. Often as we hum these melodies, we think of other songs we learned during our early school years, and we realize that we can still sing many of these from memory. We remember such songs as “Itsy Bitsy Spider“ or “Hokey Pokey” and how we learn our ABC's through the “ABC Song”. The use of familiar text, predictability, patterned text and repetition also encourage us to read. When we read and sing “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed” we can quickly predict the pattern leading to "No more monkeys jumping on the bed !".
MUSIC ! How can children learn or live without it? The similarities between literacy acquisition and musical development are indeed many. The successful acquisition of reading and writing skills in early childhood depends on a solid background in oral language development. What better way to gain knowledge and confidence in oral language than through music?
It appears that the first three to five years of a child's life are critical for optimal brain development for acquiring music and linguistic abilities. Let's consider some of the important gifts and links to developing this music and language literacy.
To help you start, have are five factors to consider.
Music develops the brain
Music connects the functions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain so that they work together and make learning quick and easy. It helps children stay alert. Howard Gardner's research on Multiple Intelligences supports this idea. Gardner's Musical-Rhythmic learners are sensitive to sounds and are very much aware of tone, pitch and timbre in the learning of music and language. Opportunities to cooperate in singing games, action songs, and movement to music are the early childhood active learning precursors to reading, thinking, problem-solving, and memory.
Music develops listening skills
Listening is necessary to hear same and different letters of our alphabet, words and sounds in our environment. Listening skills are key in singing and expressive movement, and later in language, reading and writing. Thus the sooner we encourage listening skills, the more opportunities children will have to develop and apply them in their linguistic acquisition.
Music strengthens aural discrimination
The quality of aural discrimination experiences will affect children's listening, communication, and reading skills. Researches show that infants who are sung to and talked to a lot develop greater phonemic awareness and later develop larger vocabularies.
Music helps children speak clearly and pay attention
When children sing nursery rhymes and pat steady beat, they speak more clearly. They also sing and read more "in tune," and enunciate more effectively. Studies on the steady beat factor suggest that students who demonstrate beat-competence and beat-independence increase their awareness of rhyming patterns and alliteration in other areas of reading and writing. They also perform well in other areas of the academic curriculum
Music is FUN! - and fundamental for all young children
Besides providing enjoyment, music plays an important role in their language and literacy development. It makes many valuable connections to our children's language capabilities, memory, creative thinking and emerging academic success. Music's gifts abound around us. Let's use them to make significant differences in our children.
Article written by Mr Thomas Tan
Master Trainer, Seimpi School of Music
Lecturer, Seimpi Academy
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Seimpi MusicNotes - Aug 2015 Newsletter
Read the August newsletter:
Happy SG50!
Happy 50th National Day to all Singaporeans!
We celebrate with a poem and a song to all.
And Here We Are
We rode through the perilous waves
With wills of iron
We trudged through the dirty mud
And here we are
We crawled onwards undaunted
With courage of lion
We walked against the fearsome storm
And here we are
There are no maps for us to follow
Still we marked our paths
No one promised us the future
Still we grasped the glory
We had been through hurt and pain
Still our eyes continue to shine
We were battered by the cruel world
Still we stay strong as one
Rising slowly but surely from a humble background
And here we are
Crossing the bridge that our ancestors built
And here we are
Proudly we stand as Singaporeans.
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