The Benefits of Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes have been passing down for generations. We get it from our parents, and we give it to our children. It seems this habit won't change soon. Schools even use them as a teaching tool for children. All of this shows that nursery rhymes give benefits to children. And what are those? Here are the benefits of nursery rhymes. It can:

1. A means to communicate with babies

rnWe do many ways to communicate with our babies such as: • bring out meaningless voices along with the funny faces -mimicking our babies • talk to them like we talk to adult though they haven't understood the words we say • sing them nursery rhymes. Those ways make babies learn the language we use, and they're going to use later. When it comes to learning and understanding language, babies must know the words first. And nursery rhyme is the best options to make babies grasp words more than the first and the second way. It's due to the nursery rhyme melody that attracts babies' attention which makes babies love hearing the rhymes again and again. The often they hear the words, the better their brain keep the words in the memory. 2. A means to soothe our babies rnNursery rhymes come with rhythm or music. And music is the best way to soothe babies whenever they are sad or cranky. In that situation, sing them for instance, the Rock-a-Bye Baby or Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star, which both melodies are slow beats, to our crying baby while we hold him/her, he/she will be calm easily. If we make calming the babies using the suitable rhymes, slow beat rhymes for a sad moment or upbeat rhymes for a happy moment, as a habit, they will get used to adjusting their mood. So whenever they have tantrums, it won't be hard for us to calm them.

3. Improve young children's vocabularies and their speaking ability

rnAs mentioned in the first benefit, babies keep the word they hear in their brain. If we give a variety of nursery rhymes to them, they will get new vocabularies which they may not get from daily conversation only. It is so because of the nursery rhyme is a writing form which entails words we do not often use in daily speaking. That's why giving young children nursery rhymes can improve their vocabularies. Later, when babies' body parts, which produce the sound, has been ready to combine the sounds that form words, the abundance of words they've already got, will make them able to speak in rich vocabularies.

4. Kindle toddler's interest in reading

Once babies have grown to toddler and have been able to speak, it doesn't mean we should stop giving the nursery rhymes. Furthermore, we can use them to kindle the toddlers' interest in reading. We can start pointing the words in the nursery rhymes book while we read them the rhymes. The shapes awareness which has formed in toddler's age will stimulate their sight and start grasping them in the form of writing (letters) -not only through auditory. Once their interest in the writing of the rhymes has shown, we can begin the process by introducing our toddler to phonics: • Start with the alphabets' sounds by using the alphabets rhymes and stories. • Next step is combining the alphabets' sounds to form a word. Give our toddler the rhymes and stories related to it to help them practise. • Continue by giving longer rhymes stories. As we read them to our toddlers, let them guess what words come next. It's an important skill young children must have in reading. This reading learning process which uses nursery rhymes as a media will make young children able to learn the process step-by-step and in chunks. So they won't feel that reading is an exhausting process. Instead, it's going to be a fun process as they've learned it through their favorite media - the nursery rhymes.

5. Kindle young children's interest in math

There are many rhymes related to math concept such as number sequence, size, etc. When young children hear these rhymes, they will be eager to say them over and over. This activity will make young children memorize the number sequence naturally through a fun way, not through rote memorization.

6. Make young children have a sense of rhythm

rnRhymes comes with a rhythmic melody which makes young children get the sense of rhythm as they sing them. The acquisition of it will help young children in learning music, and in recognizing a pattern. rnThe latter ability will give lots of benefits for young children when they learn a language, math, and science in further education. It will also help them in social skills as they will be able to recognize the pattern in socialising with people surrounds them. Those are the benefits our children can get from the nursery rhymes. The benefits not only useful in their early childhood time but through the later time of childhood. So, let's rncontinue giving nursery rhymes to our children, show them the book, and use them optimally in children's learning. In the end, they will get the benefits and have the memory which lasts into adulthood, just like us. When this happens in the future, it means nursery rhymes has, again, passed on to another generation.