During our morning Skills Block (a time dedicated to learning letters, sounds, (phonics), phonemic awareness, and shared reading), a nursery rhyme a week is introduced. Nursery rhymes are a wonderful way to teach these skills because they are short and easy for children to remember. The bonus is they give numerous opportunities to develop many levels of phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is defined as the awareness of sounds (phonemes) that make up spoken sounds. This includes rhyming, alliteration, ending, beginning sounds, and blending sounds to make words. There is overwhelming evidence that early learning of nursery rhymes and rhythmic poems, songs, and chants enhances early reading skills and phonemic awareness. On Fridays, we like to have a culminating, hands on activity to go with the rhyme. Today, the room was buzzing with the children making the next page in their nursery rhyme book, Baa, Baa Black Sheep. Using paper bags, construction paper and cotton, they made a wonderful keepsake to remember and share all they learned...wool and so much more!
