Singing a few nursery rhymes with your baby or child every day is a quick and easy way to support their learning and development.
Five ways nursery rhymes support your child's learning and development:
- When you sing nursery rhymes with your child you will be supporting them to learn to talk as they become familiar with the words and rhythm, and begin to imitate the sounds you make, or join in with the words.
- When you sing nursery rhymes with your child you will support the bond between you to develop as you look at each other and imitate one another’s actions.
- When you sing nursery rhymes with your child you will be supporting them to develop muscle control and coordination as you help them to follow the actions in rhymes.
- When you sing nursery rhymes with your child you will be supporting pre-reading and pre-writing skills as they develop phonological awareness by hearing sounds in the rhymes.
- When you sing nursery rhymes with your child you will support them to learn to count, add and subtract numbers when you sing number rhymes.
If your first language is not English, then make sure you sing rhymes in your home language, the benefits to your baby or child will be just the same!
It’s good to sing rhymes together when you are playing with your baby or child, so you can give them your full attention. But you could also fit some more rhymes into your day by singing them during nappy changing, while getting dressed in the morning, as you prepare lunch, while doing the shopping or while you’re in the car, or on a bus!
Celebrate nursery rhyme week by learning some new rhymes together, these videos will help you:
