Rhymes can be both fun and educational for your preschool aged child. Whether it’s in songs, plays or stories, using rhymes for the purposes of helping your child learn is a wonderful tool. Not only are they fun, but they also have long-term benefits and will help them learn through their school years. Here’s how preschool activities that include rhyming can help your child.
Rhyming Helps With Language Development
Because rhymes in stories are beaming with word flow, your child can stimulate their vocabulary with the use of rhymes. Vowels, consonants, volume, rhythm and voice pitch all go hand in hand with rhymes, which helps your child form words and helps with their pronunciation.
Think of “see you later, alligator. In a while, crocodile”. This rhyme helps with pronunciation and identifies two different word rhymes. Nursery rhymes also may include words that your child has never heard before, which gives them the opportunity to broaden their vocabulary.
Rhyming Helps With Memory And Cognitive Development
Think back to when you studied for a test in senior year or college – you may have used acronyms, rhymes or pictures to help you memorize certain facts – the same is true for the effect of rhymes on your child’s brain. The constant repetition of certain words which sound the same greatly helps your child to remember those words, and can also help in them building memorization skills.
The element of cause and effect and consequential reasoning also plays a part, because most rhymes have a beginning, a middle and an end. This can help your child work out why certain things happen if a person does x or y, which teaches accountability and responsibility.
Literacy And Rhyming
The first exposure that most children have with reading is through nursery rhymes, and often before they can read, they can recite a nursery rhyme or two. This means that before your child is able to read, they probably know how to rhyme words first, which helps set the stage for their reading phase.
Nursery rhyme books are often read before children are formally taught to read, so these kids get a jump start in the classroom to those who were not exposed to rhymes and nursery rhymes. Words and word formation is taught in rhymes, and your child will have the ability to detect what parts of the words sound similar and why – in other words, where the common denominator is. This is a big milestone in the journey towards literacy and reading for preschool aged children, so exposing your child to rhymes is one of the best things you can do for your child.
Whether your child is sitting with their peers, their teacher, or with you, spending time together reciting nursery rhymes in a social setting is a great way for your child to build self-esteem and confidence, work on bonding, and develop their social skills.
There are many advantages to rhymes in stories and books – we encourage you and your child to read nursery rhymes together at least once a week. You can even make up your own rhymes and encourage your child to do the same, for example “the cat on the mat looks flat”. Ask your child which words make the sentence rhyme and why.
There are great books to try out, like The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen, or Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss. Arming yourself with a list of preschool rhyme books will ensure you and your kids will never miss out on the rhyming fun.