Rhythm, rhyme and learning to read

Singing, dancing and making music together is fun, but also helps your child to master skills that are the very beginning of learning to read and write.  

You might not be thinking about reading yet, if you’re still enjoying a newborn scrunch or wondering if your baby is the only one who wakes up every hour.  

But even if your little one hasn’t taken their first step yet, you’re helping them become a reader already.   

Reading involves bringing together skills from different streams, including cognitive, physical, sensory and language.  

As you chat, play, read and sing with your baby, toddler or child you are helping them to master these skills.  

In this article, we focus on how rhymes and rhythm have been associated with learning to read.  

Babies – learning language and rhythm 

Even before their first word, your baby is learning about language.  

Scientists at Cambridge University are researching how babies and young children learn about words. They think the rhythmic patterns of nursery rhymes and songs help babies identify where each word starts and finishes. [1,2] 

This means singing to your baby helps them to learn words.  

Moving from sounds to letters 

Reading and writing involves using knowledge of letters and the sounds they represent. This aspect is known as phonics and is the part of learning to read that many of us recognise as reading.  

But the ability to hear the sounds in words builds on awareness of things like rhyme and alliteration.[3] 

All this means, nursery rhymes and songs help your child to identify these sounds and lay foundations for learning phonics. 

Ideas for enjoying rhymes and songs together 

• Make rhymes part of your routine – this could be Twinkle, Twinkle becoming part of bedtime or adapting your favourite rhyme to become a ‘getting dressed tune’.  
• Change the words – as your child grows they will love hearing different versions of the rhymes they love!  
• Use this month’s play kit to make some instruments – use them to play along as you sing together.  
• Make some props – this could be as simple as a few drawings linked to favourite rhymes (a spider, a sheep and a star) or you could gather objects, such as a ball of wool or tube for Incy Wincy spider to slide down.  
• Have a kitchen disco – sing and dance along to some family friendly tunes.  

References: 

[1] Di Liberto, G.M., Attaheri, A., Cantisani, G., Reilly, R.B., Choisdealbha, A.N., Rocha, S., Brusini, P. & Goswami, U. (2023). Emergence of the cortical encoding of phonetic features in the first year of life. Nature Communication, 14, 7789. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43490-x 

[2] St John’s College (2023). Why reading nursery rhymes and singing to babies may help them learn language. Why reading nursery rhymes and singing to babies may help them to learn language | St John's College, University of Cambridge 

[3] Pfost, M., Blatter, K., Artelt, C., Stanat, P. and Schneider, W., 2019. Effects of training phonological awareness on children's reading skills. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 65, p.101067. 

[4] Patscheke, H., Degé, F. and Schwarzer, G., 2019. The effects of training in rhythm and pitch on phonological awareness in four-to six-year-old children. Psychology of Music, 47(3), pp.376-391.