Toddler Week 23

0

Magical Nursery Rhymes

Did you know that the even cadence of the meter used in nursery rhymes helps establish emotional security in a child? There is a significant research base indicating that infants prefer listening to speech with a rhythmical and even pattern, as well as that with many repetitions.  Most adults and older children automatically adjust their speech patterns to suit this preference when talking to infants and toddlers. As babies grow, adults usually stop talking to them in this way and adapt their speech to suit the child’s maturity level. When you are reading nursery rhymes to your toddler, for instance, you mimic this familiar speech pattern that he or she has heard as a baby. This, in turn, helps invoke feelings of familiarity and security.

Many nursery rhymes contain frequent repetition of key phrases. Hearing the same phrase over and over again in different contexts will help your child learn language in chunks. For example, in the nursery rhyme ‘One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians,’ counting from one to three is repeated several times, and toddlers will count with the rhyme very quickly if they hear it often.

Nursery rhymes are also an excellent way to encourage phonological awareness early on. Phonological development is the ability to recognize the different attributes of speech. In other words, by listening to nursery rhymes, your toddler is learning how some sounds are similar and how some are different. This is a crucial skill for literacy development and children exposed to nursery rhymes frequently from an early age generally find it easier to learn to read and write in the early school years.

So engage your child with some nursery rhyme reading everyday. It doesn’t just promise to be enjoyable; it will also give them that competitive edge they need later in life.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here