Every early years setting needs a wide variety of books which contain poetry, rhymes and rhyming and rhythmic text. Many children are familiar with nursery rhymes they have heard at home, often from CDs or television.
Lots will have had pleasurable, reassuring experiences when family members or friends have shared soothing lullabies or rhymes with them when they were babies.
Children are generally comfortable with rhythm and rhyme - it is part of their everyday lives. Advertising campaigns and slogans rely, often heavily, on rhythm and rhyme, and they are a strong influence on modern culture. Rhyme helps us to recall - who doesn't remember what 'Beanz meanz...'? Early years practitioners should build on these early experiences when planning to use rhymes and rhyming texts.
Children need regular opportunities to explore quality rhyming and rhythmic texts. These texts are repetitive and patterned and encourage children to make predictions. Experience with rhyme plays an important role in helping young children to learn to read. It is becoming increasingly evident that children with good rhyming skills often become good readers.
Practitioners should ensure that children have daily opportunities to hear and join in with traditional and contemporary rhymes. Each setting should have at least a small collection of poetry and rhyme books that adults can refer to. These could include:
* My Very First Mother Goose edited by Iona Opie (Walker Books)
* Twinkle, Twinkle, Chocolate Bar edited by John Foster (Oxford University Press)
* Macmillan Treasury of Nursery Rhymes and Poems, edited by Alison Green (Macmillan) Rhymes and word play The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren by Iona and Peter Opie (Oxford University Press, 1959) documented, for the first time, the long history of children's play rhymes and customs. The Opies found that the rhymes children used were rich and diverse, evolving over hundreds of years. Oral traditions intermingled with popular and contemporary themes.
Young children need to be encouraged to create their own rhymes. When they are confident with rhymes, practitioners can support children to play with the words. For example, 'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall' can become 'Humpty Dumpty sat on a log' and children can create the next line: 'Humpty Dumpty swallowed a frog' or 'barked like a dog'.
Core rhymes
Many early years settings select a set of 'core' books and these often include favourite rhythmic and rhyming texts (see 'Lasting appeal', Nursery World, 10 February). Additionally, practitioners in many settings choose to develop a list of ten or 12 'core rhymes'. A 'rhyme of the week' is used every day, so that children have lots of opportunities to revisit and play with the words and rhythm. By the time children leave the settings they are familiar and confident with a range of quality rhymes.
Practitioners should provide opportunities for children to make rhymes an integral part of their play. A water play experience could include five plastic ducklings and one mother duck, or five plastic frogs and a log to support children as they chant 'Five little ducks went swimming one day' or 'Five little speckled frogs'. NW
Judith Stevens is early years adviser at Lewisham Education
Recommended core titles
Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin (Puffin 5.99)
So Much By Trish Cooke (Walker 5.99)
Where's My Teddy?
By Jez Alborough (Walker 5.99)
This is the Bear by Sarah Hayes (Walker 4.99)
Don't Put Your Finger in the Jelly, Nelly!
by Nick Sharratt (Scholastic 3.99)
Once Upon a Time by John Prater (Walker 4.99)
We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen (Walker 5.99)
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson (MacMillan 5.99)
Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacombe (Walker 4.99)
Pass the Jam, Jim by Kaye Umansky (Red Fox 4.99
Other titles to consider
* My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes by Eve Sutton (Puffin 4.99)
* The Monster Bed by Jeanne Willis (Red Fox 5.99)
* Peepo by Janet and Allan Ahlberg (Viking 4.99)
* Ten in a Bed by Penny Dale (Walker 4.99)
* Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema (MacMillan, Pounds 4.99)
* Dinosaur Roar! by Paul and Henrietta Strickland (Puffin 4.99)
* The Bungle in the Jungleby John Bush (Red Fox 5.99)
* Tog the Tog by Colin Hawkins (Dorling Kindersley 3.99)
* The Grumpalump by Sarah Hayes (Walker 5.99)
