With World Nursery Rhyme Week coming to a close, we’ve been reflecting on the power of rhyme and how best to use it to support children’s development.
Why use rhyme?
Rhymes are a great tool that both teachers and parents can use to help support children’s language and literacy learning from early development to children in key stage 1.
During the early years, listening out for rhymes helps children tune into the different sounds that make up words, helping with their speech development.
As they start school, recognising and making up rhymes helps children really think about how sounds and words work and provides important foundation skills for phonics.
Rhyming also comes into play in key stage one, as it continues to build foundations for phonics, reading and spelling.
Most importantly, rhyming is fun! Children love it and it’s a great way to get them to play around with words and sounds. Like lots of great learning, it happens without the children even noticing.
The benefits of using nursery rhymes
Nursery rhymes are a great vehicle for getting children interested and engaged in rhyme, for lots of reasons.
Where children have limited language skills, they can join in with actions and gestures.
Just listening to nursery rhymes can help children get a feel for the rhythm of language.
Repetition of words and phrases in nursery rhymes can help children try out the language in an easy less pressured way – rhymes are often silly or fun which children love.
Hearing the same words in rhymes can support their understanding.
Some rhymes help with other areas of learning. For instance, number rhymes, like 10 Currant Buns, helps with numbers, singing the rainbow helps to introduce colour, and Old McDonald helps to introduce animals and the noises they make.
Saying or singing rhymes together is a fun and safe space to have a go at nursery rhymes.
Want to learn some new nursery rhymes? Check out the World Nursery Rhyme Week website for information, videos, songs, and words that you and your children can join in with.
10 rhyming activities for children
Rhyming games and activities can be a great way to practice recognising and making up rhymes, building the foundations for speech, phonics and children’s confidence in understanding how rhyme works.
Here are 10 quick and easy ideas you can use to play around with rhyme:
Staring simple, you can sing rhymes with actions, such as ‘Insy Winsy Spider’ or with noises children can join in with such as ‘Old MacDonald’s Farm’. Use toy spiders or animals to help the children link the words to objects.
Use nursery rhyme songs and actions in your routines. For example, you could sing, “This is the way we take off our coats” to the tune of ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’.
Add a line or word to a rhyme that doesn’t work and see if the children spot the difference. “Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you at!”
Pretend you have forgotten the nursery rhyme, or use a toy or puppet who is forgetful, then miss out the end of the rhyme and ask the children to help fill in the blanks. “Humpty dumpty sat on a ….”
Can they make up a new rhyme with your help. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a chair, Humpty Dumpty… had a big scare… cut off his hair… didn’t want to be there…”. Maybe they could choose the new rhyme they like the best.
Use rhyme when saying the children’s names or asking them to do routine actions. “I’m thinking of someone, his name rhymes with “back… is it George? or is it Jack?”. “Time to jump up off the floor, time to line up at the…”
Share story books with rhymes, like ‘There’s a Bear on My Chair’ or ‘Shark in the Park’ and encourage the children to join in. Repeat these stories and leave gaps so children can fill in the rhyming words.
Play ‘rhyme’ I spy. “I am thinking of something green that grows outside. It’s big with leaves and rhymes with sea… what could it be?”
Play rhyme odd one out. “Man, fan, happy – which is the odd one out? The one that doesn’t rhyme.”
Play around with rhyming pairs with the children. It could be related to a theme or totally random – the sillier the better.
“I love jam with a slice of ham.”
“I dream of chocolate ice cream.”
“I love jelly. It wobbles in my belly.”
“My favourite apples are crunchy and munchy.”
“I like to eat bananas when I’m wearing my pyjamas.”
“My pet bunny likes carrots with honey.”
More rhyming activities and information
For more activities, tips, videos and examples of rhymes in action, visit the Tiny Happy People website. To find out more about when different rhyming and other phonological skills develop, check out Reading Rockets.