Do you remember nursery rhymes that you learned as a child? Jack and Jill, Little Bow Peep, Little Boy Blue, etc. How about this one:
Hey Diddle, diddle the cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport and
The dish ran away with the spoon.
While the tradition of these is no longer very common, they are a great kindergarten readiness tool. Some reasons why include helping expand memory using word sounds, practice making mental images or visualizing, and learning about words that rhyme. Rhyming is critically important not just for readiness for kindergarten but for learning to read. Kids need to hear the bits of sounds in words so they can make new ones, like spoon, moon, loon, tune, soon, raccoon, etc. Or the TV ad that said to put some pork on your fork. This is called phonological awareness. Have you ever said or heard someone say to you: Remember, I told you about that this morning. That’s called auditory memory and we can start working on it now with little ones but in a way that’s lots more fun–sun, run, bun, pun, one.
That’s 1, 2 highly valuable readiness for kindergarten skills with some old nursery rhymes. I wish this was the last dish! And it is for this week because the dishes are done.
