Childhood is marked by big discoveries and one of them is learning how to read and write. Through literacy, children start exploring a world that so far has been uncharted territory for them. This process may happen with the support of playful approaches that involve music, poems and rhymes. In order to stimulate literacy, these methods are used by many therapists and educators and have presented positive results to children’s cognitive development and learning.
This article published in 2014 by Frontiers in Psychology, a journal that publishes rigorously peer-reviewed articles in the psychological sciences and clinical research fields, claims that rhymes can be effective enablers of vocabulary learning because of the way they support active predictions of the words that follow.
In two experiments, it was tested whether rhymes, when used to help children anticipate new words, would make such words easier to learn. The children exposed to rhyming words exhibited that they learned more of them in the condition of predictive rhyming compared to children who were not.
The researchers’ hypothesis is that the development of these new words and their predictability encourage children to be more involved with them. They may not be able to predict the exact name of a new word the first time they are reading a story, but when a new name comes at the end of the verse, children will be more capable of anticipating that something is coming — something which will sound like the ending of the song or story’s previous sentences. This anticipation can encourage attention and therefore stimulate learning.
:: Read also: Why is reading so important? ::
The process of learning that involves reading and writing is very subjective and children have their own rhythms on this journey.
We talked to speech therapist Manuella Barcelos, who works at Núcleo Desenvolver at UFSC’s University Hospital since 2010 and works with a multidisciplinary team that cares for children who complain about learning disabilities regarding these processes.
According to her, literacy, i.e. learning to read and write, involves two brain processes that are well developed by children by the time they begin school. One of them is language — since children bring resources and baggage from home — and the other is visual processing.
School makes the connection between these two areas, introducing letters and their whole new universe. When children learn based on this question, it is crucial to think that there is a way to teach which is more adequate for them, which promotes reading and writing in an easier way, and, in this sense, rhymes are great allies.
“Phonological awareness happens when children start to manipulate their speech sounds in a conscious manner. They will know speech can be split into small units called words, smaller ones called syllables, and even smaller ones called phonemes. For literacy to happen, it is important that children learn these prerequisite skills and through a phonological method it is possible for them to learn to read and write more easily”, reports the speech therapist.
Manuella employs rhyming in the learning to read process of the children she works with. “The literacy process involves phonological awareness. Within phonological awareness there is rhyming, one of the first signs of awareness, which is when the child starts to notice the endings of words that have the same tone. In addition to rhymes, there is also alliteration, through which the child notices that the beginning sounds can also be similar, e.g. could and cook,” she reports.
“Rhyming is one of the first signs of phonological awareness and we see this since kindergarten. Its use is very important. I use it in my work, mainly with kids with learning difficulties and disabilities such as dyslexia, spelling, or kids with auditory processing disorder (APD). It is fantastic for the process of learning to read and write. We need to stimulate phonological awareness, but even more important is to do so during preschool, even before children have properly started to learn how to read and write”, she explains.
Canadian researcher Ginger Muller, with a master’s degree from the University of British Columbia, developed works for 20 years using rhymes and songs in several early childhood education programs in Vancouver, Canada.
In her work, she contextualizes specific rhymes inside domains defined by the Initial Development Tool: physical health and wellness, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge, social competence and emotional maturity. She therefore shows how rhymes can be practiced effectively with kids of different ages and their benefits to these skills.
In this article written by the researcher, she shows that children learn well when surrounded by rich environments in terms of language, joy and fun. Ginger presents songs that can help to develop these skills, “centenary children’s rhymes and songs, tested and proved, support children’s general development in terms of meaning and engaging forms,” she writes.
Using rhymes with kids, in addition to helping them learn to read, also brings them closer to our national culture. There are several rhymes that rely on cultural elements from different regions of the country as well as their folklore. This experience is enriching for children in every sense!
A very cool tip for kids who are learning to read is Truth and Tales, our original app!
Truth and Tales is an app for kids between the ages of 5 and 11 with interactive stories and audiobooks. All tales are told in rhymes, both in the interactive and in the audio versions. Knowing about its benefits, we made sure to adopt rhyming in every single one of our stories.
We periodically conduct tests with children in which the same story is told in 2 versions: one with rhymes and one without rhymes. In addition to the benefits mentioned in this article, in our tests children are more interested in the rhymed version of the stories.
Aside from the rhymes, Truth and Tales also includes optimized fonts for people with dyslexia and a read-along tool which works as a karaoke, in which the words are highlighted as the narrator reads them. That is tremendously helpful when learning to read. Try it with the kids!
Written by Débora Nazário
Translated by Mariana Gruber
The father figure is changing and it is no longer seen as the family provider. Domestic chores are increasingly being shared equally and so are the parents’ responsibilities. Nowadays, the mother is not the only one responsible for the raising and rearing of a child. The father figure is just as important as the mother, and a good relationship between the child and the father figure has countless positive benefits to kids’ lives.
The mother is more present in the first few years of a child’s life — after all, she is the one who breastfeeds. When they are babies, kids see themselves and their mothers as one thing, and overtime they start to perceive there is a separation between them. The father is part of this process. This figure shows the world to the child and motivates them to explore it, even if unconsciously.
An article published in the Brazilian Journal of Psychopedagogy explains the importance of this parent figure. “The role of the father in child development and the interaction between father and child is one of the decisive factors to social and cognitive development, facilitating the child’s learning ability and integration into the community.” The article also explains that the connection between father and child is reflected later on in their adult lives, in their psycho-affective constructions, and by having an impact on their social relationships.
A good relationship between the child and this figure also affects the way kids act when they come across challenges, and they tend to be less aggressive.
Psychologist Márcia Orsi explained in an interview to Pais&Filhos magazine that “research has shown that the father figure makes the entrance into social relations safer for the child.” This parent figure is indispensable to establish boundaries, an important factor of the child’s character-building process.
Kids need quality attention from their fathers or father figures. Girls and boys need love, care, and affection. That is why having alone-time with them is incredibly healthy for the child. Reading stories, visiting parks, going to the movies, teaching how to ride a bike, etc., are activities that create memories together and help children see themselves in the world.
:: You can also read: What is Cognitive Development? ::
Written by Luisa Scherer
Translated by Mariana Gruber
