Nursery rhymes can be a wonderful mechanism to teach your little one how to read. Reading is a skill that is a blend of several other associated skills like listening, understanding language as well as writing. Here are a few suggestions on how you can use the nursery rhyme activity to aid the child in his reading and understanding of words.

Sketching Pictures

You can start off with a fun game like you draw a picture of a certain character from the nursery rhyme that you are teaching your child. Then on the reverse of the paper you write a word that best describes the character or is a principal attribute of the character. For instance if the picture that you draw is of Little Bo-Peep, ask your child to name the character and then explain the word that you have written on the reverse side of the paper. This game will enhance her memory and association skills.

Be Patient When you Teach the Kid to Read

You need to sit on a reading session everyday and encourage the child to read along with you. Visit the children’s section of the local library along with your toddler and ask him to select a few books that he would like to read. Ask them to read the books to you when you get back home. 

Teach your child to articulate or voice the words with the help of nursery rhymes. The repetitive quality of the nursery rhymes will aid the development of the communicative faculty in an effective manner. Here for example, take the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle”. In this rhyme the letter d is repeated a number of times and it is sure to force your toddler to work hard on it and use their tongue to make an appropriate noise for the letter.

Use the Rhythm Along With the Language

Make your voice interesting and interactive. Do not use a monotone. As the child follows your rhymes, encourage them to add some rhythm to the lines with the help of their voice. The brightness and cheerfulness of your attitude should come through from your voice and make sure to involve a fair amount of finger play to make the rhymes more fun. This is also a great way to enhance their cognitive abilities. This finger play simultaneously develops the hand-eye coordination of the little one and encourages him to think too.   

Use Memory Skills

This can be done playfully by asking certain questions from the rhyme like ‘where did the kitten jump over?’ or ‘what instrument did the dog play?’ encourage him to answer by himself by referring to other instances from the rhymes and within a short time you will find the memory working through primary association.  

Use Instruments 

Building blocks, board games, card games, mazes and puzzles are great way to teach nursery rhymes to kids. You simply need to incorporate the rhyme into the game and you will be surprised how well the faculties like association, memorizing, reasoning and problem solving develop in the kid. Make it a point to explain what and why you are doing in order to give him a clear understanding of the activity that is going on.

Nursery rhymes are developed in a way that can effectively help your child develop all the required cognitive skills that can enhance their imagination and desire to learn. Identifying and understanding a written word is the first and a vital step towards proper reading skills.