Can rhyme teach children the rhythm of speech?
Have you ever wondered why we can remember nursery rhymes from our childhood? What is it about well-written verse that stays with us like a favourite song? Why do we love reading the same rhyming poems and stories we read as a child – to our children and grandchildren? To answer these questions, we need to get to the nuts and bolts of it all.
Here are 5 things I love about rhyme:
1. The sounds taste delicious on our tongues when we read rhyme out loud.
2. When a story is told in rhyme, the words seem to dance between the lines.
3. We learn to ‘picture-read’ as the story springs to life through sound bites.
4. The anticipation of rhythmic patterns adds excitement to the experience.
5. The beat stays with us and makes us want to read it over and over again.
Instant recall: Whatever our reasons are for loving rhyme, research has shown that children form stronger affections toward characters when a story is told in verse. Rhyme has a way of wiring our brain receptors to the rhythm of speech, so we can remember the words well into our adult years. Now let me expand on some of the points I made above.