Nursery Rhymes and Reading

Jack and Jill - Little Jack Horner - Three Blind Mice - what do they have in common?  They are all nursery rhymes which started out as SONGS!  
That is right, nursery rhymes are actually songs.  So many children today are not familiar with nursery rhymes!  
When my children were young, we listened to fun nursery rhyme songs whenever we were in the car and we sang them around the house. The lilting, silly, fun word-play taught my children rhyme and cantor.  Little did I know that our fun and play was rooted in science. 
According to a recent study from Cambridge University, "Parents should speak to their babies using sing-song speech, like nursery rhymes, as soon as possible...because babies learn languages from rhythmic information, not phonetic information, in their first few months." 
In my simplistic explanation, sing-song-singing leads to hearing word parts (morphemes), which leads to hearing individual sounds (phonemes), which greatly assists children in learning phonics.

"The study sheds light on language learning and its relation to dyslexia and developmental language disorders.
Key Facts:

1. Babies learn language more effectively through rhythmic speech, emphasizing word boundaries.
2. Phonetic information is not fully processed until around seven months of age.
3. Rhythmic information is a universal aspect of all languages and aids language development."

Read more here:  ​https://neurosciencenews.com/language-learning-neurodevelopment-25297/?fbclid=IwAR1g2egL7ZgZDTylxg86hWDreX14izK8g7n_La6dT_P4UU5CPpRmAb3fDgo

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