Early Language Development

How to Use Nursery Rhymes to Help Your Child's Language Development

By April 22, 2011No Comments

diddle
Have you every wondered how to use nursery rhymes to help your child’s language development? Using nursery rhymes with your young child is a very effective way to help introduce them to the patterns of language, speech sounds, and pre-literacy skills.  Read more to see how you can use nursery rhymes to help your little one develop language skills!
Did you know that it is very important to introduce rhyming to your kids at an early age? In fact, the earlier the better!  Rhyming is essential to speech, language, and literacy development.  The more naturally you can introduce it to your kids, the more easily they will pick it up and even begin to rhyme themselves!  There are so many books that have fun rhymes for you and your child to read and sing together.




Reading books to children daily helps to develop important early speech sounds, pre-reading skills, vocabulary and basic concepts. Saying nursery rhymes and singing children’s songs also helps to improve these important areas! The rhyme and repetition of the words in nursery rhymes and children’s songs helps develop an awareness of speech sounds. By singing songs loaded with early developing sounds such as p, b, t, d, k, g, and m, you can give your kids a “headstart” to great listening and speaking skills.
Here are ten very familiar nursery rhymes.  SuperDuper Inc. has put together this great handout so you can see which sounds occur in each nursery rhyme and how frequently! I love giving this handout to parents of toddlers and preschoolers.  It is never too early to start working on speech, language, and literacy! You can even make reading and singing these nursery rhymes part of your summer practice to get ready for the fall!
 




The Itsy Bitsy Spider
p – 8
k – 4
b – 2
g – 1
t – 9
m – 4
d – 10
 
Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater
p – 7
k – 5
b – 0
g – 0
t – 9
m – 4
d – 10
 
Little Bo Peep
p – 3
k – 2
b – 2
g – 2
t – 6
m – 5
d – 3
Pat-A-Cake
p – 5
k – 11
b – 5
g – 0
t – 9
m – 4
d – 3
 
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
p – 2
k – 6
b – 2
g – 1
t – 8
m – 2
d – 1
Little Miss Muffet
p – 1
k – 2
b – 2
g – 2
t – 9
m – 5
d – 7
Jack Be Nimble
p – 1
k – 5
b – 4
g – 0
t – 1
m – 2
d – 1
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
p – 2
k – 6
b – 2
g – 1
t – 8
m – 2
d – 1
These early developing sounds occur all the time in our language and books.  Start to notice when you hear them and begin to emphasize or highlight these sounds.   Have your child “copy” you saying a sound and use good models in your own speech! You are helping your kids to be better communicators and readers!!




Visit www.superduperinc.com for more information!

Leave a Reply