When teaching children to read,
Rhymes can be helpful indeed!
The reason for this is that children learn quick
How to remember the words that fit.
Rhyming may seem a bit difficult for you
But studies show it’s important to do!
Rhyming helps children unlock the power of phonemes—the building blocks of language—because they learn that a simple change at the beginning or ending of a word makes a different word. For example, children learn how to group words into families, like bat, and cat, and—of course—hat! The legendary books of Dr. Seuss are just some examples of how rhyming can help increase literacy among children.
Rhyming is fun, so by using nursery rhymes or Dr. Seuss books, you increase the fun level of reading and engage children further. Children also learn the rhythm of language from rhyming, and that’s a very important skill that helps children to pick up voice animation, how to communicate with others, and make predictions about words and about story outcomes. If story decoding skills are harnessed at an early age, children will enjoy reading more. Basically, rhyming is the backbone of learning to read and an essential part of early literacy. Here is a wonderful rhyme by Dr. Seuss to read to your children today:
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
We will be sharing Dr. Seuss stories during Twilight Thursdays for the entire month of June at the museum.
Dynia Valdovinos is program coordinator for the Santa Maria Valley Discovery Museum at 705 S. McClelland in Santa Maria. Discovery Corner is a weekly column in the Sun, highlighting events, science activities, and more. Send comments to discoverycorner@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 9-16, 2011.
