By introducing children to patterns of sounds, through nursery rhymes and early stories, the brain receives the information it will need to categorize words by their internal structure. Reading nursery rhymes helps a child s brain break words into syllables. Toddlers begin to hear similarities between words that rhyme or start with the same sounds, those similarities make sound play fun. Rhyming prepares the brain to read by initiating the process of phonological awareness. Nursery rhymes are often short and use a great deal of repetition, which provides the child opportunities to hear the words and remember them.
Rhymes also tend to include many words that begin with the same letters and rhyme at the end.
These two aspects of language, called alliteration and rhyming, allow a child to attend to sounds of words. In fact, you can create new language by making up new words such as nannie, bannie, wannie , or substituting sounds in familiar nursery rhymes such as changing twinkle, twinkle to binkle, binkle. Early exposure to those word syllables and sounds can help your child sound out words phonetically later on. Rhyming focuses on both on verbal segment and sound. This skill is a precursor to understanding the logic of the alphabetical principal, which requires awareness that letters can represent sounds of words.