Rhymes, Songs and Stories for ECCE

 

Rhymes

Nursery rhymes provide bite-sized learning opportunities for young children to develop key developmental skills and can often be the trigger for hours of creative and open-ended play. They are a powerful learning source in early literacy and enable children to become interested in the rhythm and patterns of language.

Importance of Rhymes

·         Developing phonemic awareness

Nursery rhymes teach children to pronounce words. A lot of nursery rhymes are full of interjections or funny words. They have the role of helping children repeat difficult groups of sounds with the aim of improving their speech. Above all, nursery rhymes teach children intonation and correct pronunciation.

·         Building memory and articulation

Nursery rhymes are full of rhyming words, and usually it is words or groups of sounds that you don’t encounter in regular words. By introducing your child to these patterns of sounds, nursery rhymes give their brain the input it will need to categorise words by their internal structure. This acts as a precursor to written language, where children have to identify the sounds of written words.

For example, nursery rhymes help your child’s brain to differentiate between syllables and to identify similarities between words that rhyme or words that begin with the same sounds.

·         Understanding of concepts: painting pictures in children’s heads

When you teach your child nursery rhymes, you are contributing to their creative development. When you talk to your child from the moment they are born, through to their years of learning how to talk, you are equipping them with a solid vocabulary base.

What is more, children also learn to understand abstract concepts like big, small, in front, behind, first and last. The words used in nursery rhymes help children develop language comprehension by associating words with people, objects, and events in their daily life.

·         Development of social routines

There are lots of fun nursery rhymes that you can sing in two parts. Teaching your child when they should tell their part in the rhyme contributes to their development of social skills. What is more, your child will also learn important conversation lessons, such as turn-taking and listening.

·         Listening skills

When you read nursery rhymes to your child, you are telling them a story. Because of the rhyming words, the storyline, and your pronunciation, children are lured into the story and pay attention to you. This helps them make sense of the story and at the same time makes them good listeners.

·         Physical Development

The opportunity to ‘act out’ a favourite rhyme will be a welcome activity for active minds and fidgety bodies. Physical participation in action songs encourage children to develop their fine and gross motor control skills as well as balance, coordination and the skills needed to follow simple instructions.

Songs

Music ignites all areas of child development and skills for school readiness, including intellectual, social-emotional, motor, language, and overall literacy. It helps the body and the mind work together. Exposing children to songs during early development helps them learn the sounds and meanings of words. Dancing to songs helps children build motor skills while allowing them to practice self-expression. For children and adults, music helps strengthen memory skills.

The act of singing is a physical and emotional experience and a form of communication. To sing is “to make musical sound with the voice”. It can elicit emotional response with a great power to reconnect us with ourselves and others and to provide significant and amazing moments.

·          Developing phonemic awareness

Songs teach children to pronounce words. A lot of nursery songs are full of interjections or funny words. They have the role of helping children repeat difficult groups of sounds with the aim of improving their speech. Above all, songs teach children intonation and correct pronunciation.

·         Building memory and articulation

Songs are full of rhyming words, and usually it is words or groups of sounds that you don’t encounter in regular words. By introducing your child to these patterns of sounds, songs give their brain the input it will need to categorize words by their internal structure. This acts as a precursor to written language, where children have to identify the sounds of written words.

For example, songs help your child’s brain to differentiate between syllables and to identify similarities between words that rhyme or words that begin with the same sounds.

·         Understanding of concepts: painting pictures in children’s heads

When you teach your child songs, you are contributing to their creative development. When you talk to your child from the moment they are born, through to their years of learning how to talk, you are equipping them with a solid vocabulary base.

What is more, children also learn to understand abstract concepts like big, small, in front, behind, first and last. The words used in nursery rhymes help children develop language comprehension by associating words with people, objects, and events in their daily life.

·         Development of social routines

There are lots of fun songs that you can sing in two parts. Teaching your child when they should tell their part in the songs contributes to their development of social skills. What is more, your child will also learn important conversation lessons, such as turn-taking and listening.

·         Listening skills

When you read songs to your child, you are telling them a story. Because of the rhyming words, the storyline, and pronunciation, children are lured into the song and pay attention to you. This makes them good listeners.

·         Physical Development

The opportunity to ‘act out’ a favourite song will be a welcome activity for active minds and fidgety bodies. Physical participation in action songs encourage children to develop their fine and gross motor control skills as well as balance, coordination and the skills needed to follow simple instructions.

 

Stories

Storytelling is an important teaching resource with a strong presence in all societies since the evolution of human language and has a highly effective role in the education of young children. Young children enjoy reading, writing and listening to stories, and from the stories, they are able to understand more about society and life in general. Telling and dramatizing stories is a fairly widespread addition to the pre-school curriculum.

Both storytelling and story reading have been found to be successful educational strategies that create significant improvements in language acquisition in young children, improve their oral or spoken language, develop reading comprehension, make sense of basic mathematics, prepare for school, communicate effectively, help children to learn and appreciate their world, improve cross-cultural communication and promote moral and social development. Storytelling has grown and developed over time, adopting a dynamic, contemporary presence through settings and functions. Emergent digital technologies transform the complexity of storytelling and open up new avenues for collaborative approaches. Digital storytelling is a creative process that mixes conventional storytelling with digital technology, including a computer, video camera, and sound recorder attract the attention of young children and help them in holistic development.

Benefits of Stories

·         Understand their roots and cultures: Stories play an integral part in the early childhood learning program. Telling historical and traditional stories will help your kids to understand and stay connected to different customs and roots prevalent in the family. Narrating stories from around the world. This will generate a sense of cultural awareness among your kids.

·         Enlightens ethics and virtues in children: Storytelling can have a huge impact on children’s attributes. Stories can build up their traits like honesty, truthfulness, gratitude, courage, wisdom, and many others. They help teachers to teach children the significance of morals and principles in life.

·         Enhances listening and thinking skills: Rather than listening, children love to talk more. And this scenario becomes more obvious when the stories you narrate are unclear and boring. They pay less attention while listing to stories and this leads to weakening in their thought process. Making the story session interesting and funny will grab the attention of children leading to improved listening and understanding skills.

·         Improves verbal proficiency: Reading out stories helps them to get acquainted with new languages, words, and phrases. This process improves pronunciation and interaction skills regularly. And reading the words and sentences aloud helps them understand and learn faster.

·         Develops an emotional quotient and empathy: Stories help in improving the emotional intelligence of children and gain control over their emotions. The act of storytelling can teach children to become more thoughtful towards individual and other’s requirements. During the activity of listening and understanding, children subconsciously develop the ability to think for others.

·         Boosts confidence in communication: Listening to well-defined stories develops their vocabulary; which directly affects their speech during delivery. Story time will introduce new words to children and inspire them to spell it out loud and clear.

·         Sharpens Memory and Concentration: By applying tricky ideas, storytelling can be utilized as a smart early childhood learning tool. Practicing story telling as a learning technique will help them to improve the vocabulary, encourage attention, and strengthen memory of children.

·         Kindles imagination and creativity: Fictional and realistic stories give rise to imaginative and creative skills within the kids. Stories will evoke the elements of intellectual thinking, which will support in enhancing the imagination and artistry skills of the children.

·         Heightens curiosity in the learning process: During storytelling sessions, parents or mentors should know when to take a pause. Pausing at the right point in the story makes the child curious and want to know more. This eagerness to know and ask questions helps them in learning and development. So, implement this unique early childhood learning technique that motivates your child to learn more and more.

·         Improves social skills: Through storytelling, children learn how to pay attention and listen actively to the person talking. They learn to be more patient as they listen to others speak. It also opens their eyes to other people’s thoughts and understanding how each and every person’s opinion vary. Storytelling can teach young kids so many things about the world and life. It gives them plenty of opportunities to learn wonderful ideas and things they have never encountered before. Given these benefits, parents have all the reasons to spend adequate time telling stories with their kids.