Why Is Nursery Rhymes Important To Young Children's Development?

Since the late 18th century, nursery rhymes or Mother Goose Rhymes become popular among young children as a form of poem (Carpenter & Prichard, 1984). People have been enjoying nursery rhymes for centuries (Think of the Children, 2015). If you ask people to recall childhood memories, they would probably be chanting the wonderful nursery rhymes they were able to recite long before they could read or write.

However, at-risk young children are not experiencing these wonderful poems properly nowadays though they have a more enriched information and social environment than young children of previous generations. With the prevalence of smartphones and tablets, caregivers no longer recite nursery rhymes face-to-face to young children on a regular

Based on the available studies, nursery rhymes have much more to offer than just entertainment. In addition to pure enjoyment, many benefits may be reaped from nursery rhymes. For example, it can be used by the caregivers to optimize infants’ and toddlers’ development (Kenney, 2005). When the caregiver reads a nursery rhyme to the young children, he/she opens up a world of wonder for these little ones. Related studies indicate how important it is to surround young children with many and different early stimulation activities. Rhymes can be one of the media to help boost young children’s development and lay the foundation for them to learn different skills (Danielson, 2000). Furthermore, based on neuroscience research, the nursery rhymes which infants and toddlers hear can become ingrained in the subconscious and children are able to abstract the common rhythmic structure of nursery rhymes (Bahrick, Netto, & Hernandez‐Keif, 1998). Moreover, early intervention researchers have reinforced that infancy and toddlerhood are the critical stages for the development of the nerve network for future learning (Meltzoff & Kuhl, 2016). It is important to encourage caregivers to incorporate nursery rhymes into their teaching and play with infants and toddlers (Kenney, 2005). There is a need in special needs landscape to inherit these gems of nursery rhymes and continue to pass them on to future