Mother Goose Club | Mother Goose nursery rhymes, songs, videos, and coloring pages.

Mother Goose Club | Mother Goose nursery rhymes, songs, videos, and coloring pages.

The Gift of Mother Goose
Why Nursery Rhymes Matter

Helping Children Read. Nursery rhymes help children learn to read. Research has shown that familiarity with Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes helps children develop pre-reading skills, including the ability to detect rhymes. Children who can recognize rhyming words, cat and hat for example, learn to read quicker and more successfully than their peers. This relationship holds true regardless of a child’s socio-economic background or the education level of the parents.

How Do Nursery Rhymes Help? Nursery rhymes are short and rhythmic, which makes them easy for children to learn and memorize. As children hear, sing or read nursery rhymes, they develop “phonemic awareness” or the ability to detect the individual sounds that make up words, a crucial first step in learning to read. Nursery rhymes, especially Mother Goose rhymes, also introduce children to new vocabulary which increases comprehension and benefits learning in all subjects. Most importantly, nursery rhymes are full of colorful characters and stories, which make them fun. The delight children experience as they engage in rhyme activities fosters an enduring enthusiasm for books and reading.

How Mother Goose Can Help Parents. Nursery rhymes are terrific tools for parents and teachers to help get young children ready to read. Spending a few minutes each day reading or singing nursery rhymes with a child is a simple, cost-effective and enjoyable way to promote early literacy at home. The Mother Goose Club website contains a collection of rhymes, including many Mother Goose rhymes, with illustrations, audio narrations, songs and printable coloring pages. Some live action and animated videos are also available. For parents and teachers, the site offers activities and tips on using rhymes to promote literacy at home and at school.

Future Post to this Blog

10 future posts to this blog

1) Why Mother Goose

2) Imagination and the lower level elementary student

3) So much to teach, so little time

4) Making Mother Goose come alive

5) How I can come to your school

6) Storytelling and the development of listening skills

7) Beyond technology

8) Opening a child's world

9) Developing a common base of knowledge

10) Core knowledge and the elementary child