Nursery Rhymes: How Many Do You Know?

How many nursery rhymes do you remember? How often do you sing or say them to your kids?

Nursery rhymes are one of the best ways to help young children learn a skill called phonological awareness, or the ability to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words. When babies are first learning what sounds make up our language, they need to be able to break the words down into smaller sounds. Talking, talking, talking with your baby will help them do that. Nursery rhymes will give an extra push to this important development.

As children grow older, rhymes help them figure out what sounds are made by different letters. In her book Reading Magic, Mem Fox writes that studies have shown "that if children know eight nursery rhymes by the time they're four years old, they're usually among the best readers by the time they're eight" (p. 89, 2008).

So many parents, though, can't remember the nursery rhymes they learned as children. Or, perhaps, they never learned them in the first place.

What can you do?

Never fear! We have a wide array of nursery rhyme books and CDs to get you started or refresh your memory! Stop in and find some to take home, or request some using our online catalog (try a keyword search for "Mother Goose").

Happy Rhyming!