Rhymes & Reasons

By Vilo Westwood

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man . . .

Rhymes are often one of the first things we share with our babies. They're fun, easy to remember, and children respond enthusiastically. For all these reasons rhymes are vitally important to children's further success with language. If children develop the ability to rhyme, it helps them read (looks like dime, it must be TIME!) and even spell. Most importantly, rhymes are fun. Word play creates warm, fuzzy feelings about language that makes children and adults want more and more.

Since they are easy to remember rhymes help children as they begin to talk.

Also, the classic nursery rhymes are building blocks for a lot of further literature experience. Kindergarten and first grade classes refer to these rhymes in many activities. Agatha Christie used nursery rhymes as starting points for many of her mysteries.

Feel you don't know many rhymes? Most libraries have anthologies of nursery rhymes (some with CDs) and some collections of action rhymes (ones that have motions and gestures). There are at least two collections of Spanish rhymes (also in English).

Stages of Baby and Child Reading

By Vilo Westwood

A handout I came across recently described the stages of baby, toddlerhood and preschooler with these main tasks: Bond (1-4 mos.), Explore (4-18 mos.), Pretend (18 mos. to 3 yrs) and Learn (4 & 5 years). (The ages vary widely and the stages overlap.) These tasks are evident as we begin to teach our children to love books and reading.

Very young babies enjoy being with their parents and as they become aware of their surroundings they take some interest in books. They love to hear your voice, whether you are talking to them, singing, reading a book or reciting nursery rhymes. As babies become more active they explore books. They try to grab them, put them in their mouths, chew them, exclaim over the pictures, throw them. Many children this age (and older!) are impatient with going sequentially through a book. They want to skip ahead, go back to a favorite picture several times, look at two pages and move on to the next book. They are exploring books rather than reading them.

As children move more into the Pretend stage, books become very important. Books help children imagine worlds far from their daily realities and pretend about animals in a jungle, sheep on a farm, and many things that could not really happen. Children love to hear the same books again and again and again. There are many reasons for this, but one is that they love a particular imaginary world and want to visit often. Finally, children begin avidly learning about everything around them. They want to know why things happen, how they happen, all the facts about dinosaurs, or weather, or a favorite TV show. More and better nonfiction books (informational books) are available for young children.

Whatever the age or stage of your child, the most important thing a parent can do is make time spent together with books warm, fun, safe. Give children lots of opportunities to bond, explore, pretend and learn with books at their own pace, with some influence of your tastes and your pace and your desire to move page by page through a book.