“Mama, spiders are icky!” my son shouted over the sound of the nursery rhyme coming out of our car speakers. I agreed but said, “But this one knew what he wanted!” We kept singing about that persistent itsy, bitsy spider who’d been washed out yet climbed up the slippery water spout again and again.
I find nursery rhymes comforting. They take me back to my own childhood, and even though they don’t always have a happy ending (poor Humpty Dumpty), I appreciate their simplicity. I know not every mom enjoys rhymes or nonsensical stories, but there are actually several benefits of nursery rhymes. So before you’re tempted to write off Mother Goose and her crew as mindless entertainment, here are 5 reasons nursery rhymes should be a toddler mom’s friend.
1. They’re easy to fit into a toddler’s day.
Unlike arts and crafts or blocks, “Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O” takes zero supplies, zero planning, and zero cleanup. You and your toddler can sing it from the car as you drive by birds, cows, or dogs. Or while you’re cutting up grapes for lunch. Every grape is an O!
One of the most valuable benefits of nursery rhymes is that they give opportunities for instant connections, silliness, and lots of smiles between you and your toddler.
2. They are a springboard to all things language.
“Hickory dickory dock. The mouse ran up the clock.” You could probably recite that in your sleep, but did you know simple rhymes like that catapult your toddler’s awareness of sound patterns?
She’ll hear the “ock” sound and learn that some words rhyme. Then she’ll connect the dots and realize other words don’t rhyme. Why not? What are their sounds? Experimenting with and recognizing sounds leads to stronger reading, writing, and spelling foundations. It’s one of the benefits of nursery rhymes that can’t be understated. Nursery rhymes also lead to growth in all the “ations”: enunciation, pronunciation, articulation, intonation, and modulation.
3. They are a tool to teach empathy.
“Jack and Jill went up the hill…” and everything went downhill from there. Literally. When you and your toddler recite this nursery rhyme, make a cringe “owie” face when Jack falls or Jill tumbles to teach your child to consider what another person is feeling. Social emotional skills still have a long way to go to fully mature, but talking about what a character experiences is a good first step in teaching empathy.
4. They lay a foundation for math intelligence.
“Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head!” Your kiddo might appear to have mastered subtraction as the monkeys fall one at a time, but the real math benefits of nursery rhymes come from patterns and repetition. It’s the same reason learning an instrument can help with math—mathematical reasoning is based on searching for and analyzing patterns.
5. They teach story sequences.
“Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet…” As your little one recites this nursery rhyme, she’ll remember Miss Muffet was ready to indulge in delicious curds and whey when a spider came along, sat down, and frightened her away (What’s with nursery rhymes and spiders?). To you, it’s a simple order of events, but to your toddler, it teaches the concept that a story has a beginning, middle, and end.
What’s your favorite nursery rhyme? Have you taught it to your child yet?
