Singing songs together, finger games, jumping games in the yard and board games in the group are fixed parts of the day care center’s everyday life. Educators and pedagogical specialists know: Children find pleasure in various activities and are easy to make laugh. To also promote language with fun to connect, educators need to get creative. Language development poems, as well as rhymes, tongue twisters, and songs Support the children’s language development. Depending on the season, you can choose different poems that fit the holidays or the occasion particularly well. Through memorization or additions in the form of a craft activity language games become an exciting activity for kindergarten children.
Language development: Not only with poems
There is a lot to tell in kindergarten: Especially after the weekend the children can tell about their experiences on the days off. Educators and pedagogical staff listen to the children and help them with difficult words or even with sentence structure. By such an exchange the language development of the children is advanced.
The children learn new words from the caregivers and develop a grammatical understanding. Everyday life in the kindergarten offers the children many opportunities to expand and develop their language. Songs and poems play an important role in speech development. In a circle of chairs or in small groups they are discussed in more detail and recited together.
In the chair circle into new words and meanings are learned© Monkey Business Images – Shutterstock
Through rhymes and different sound combinations the children can remember words better. In addition, a Sense of community develops. Reciting poems together helps on the one hand to learn the melody of speech. On the other hand, children have more fun in the company of others in learning- this has a noticeable, positive effect on the educational area and the developmental goals of language.
New words: expanding vocabulary with poems
The development of vocabulary and correct pronunciation is an elementary area of education that is covered in kindergarten. They are an integral part of the Language acquisition, which the pedagogical professionals promote with their work. Poems are an effective method to positively influence language acquisition.
In addition to nursery rhymes and sounds, the children also learn new words with poems. Since the texts are often adapted to a certain motto or are practiced for a specific occasion, they increase the child’s vocabulary. For example, if the poem has the theme of autumn, the children learn words that belong to this motif. For many children, the words „Harvest" and „Foliage" new.
In this way, children’s vocabulary automatically expands. Their pronunciation also improves. Singing or speaking the poems together allows the children to hear how certain words are pronounced. The Rhymes and Texts thus provide the little ones with language stimuli that they need and can use for their language development.
Language development: learning rhythm through poetry
Rhyming words and combinations of syllables contribute to the Speech melody and contribute to the rhythm of a poem. Children learn in kindergarten or daycare how rhythm is created and how they can find it themselves. By reciting poems, children internalize how to stress words and syllables to produce the correct speech melody.
This effect can be enhanced by music and movement:
- Linking with musicPoems can be performed well with instrumental support. The rhythm becomes even clearer.
- Movements to the rhythmThe whole body can be involved in reciting the poems.
- Frequent repetitionA single recitation of the poem does not result in a learning effect. The texts should be recited several times.
Often it helps the children, for example, to move in rhythm to the sounds of the poem. Think to the respective poems suitable body movements or finger games and present it to the children. Children have fun to move to a text or song. Build different body parts into the movement pattern: The kindergarten children should use their left and right hands, their feet and, for example, their head to move rhythmically to a poem. The best example here is the language game "Aramsamsam", which can be internalized excellently through various arm movements.
By introducing different movements, the children create a link© Fh Photo – Shutterstock
Active and also physical participation in the poems increases children’s memorization skills. The sentences and rhyming words from the poem remain better in their memory if they connect them with certain movements or body postures. Finger games also help to internalize nursery rhymes. In this way, the children’s competence to think up such mnemonic devices and learning aids themselves in the future also increases. The ability to concentrate, for example Tongue twisters especially required.
Stimulating the senses with poems: More than just language development
Language development in kindergarten is not just about dry exercises. Language acquisition must be fun for the children make. Educators and pedagogical specialists know very well that tasks without a certain fun factor are not very popular with the children. For this reason, it can be helpful to address the different senses of the children with the exercises.
Children want to perceive their environment in all its diversity. this means that they want to smell, hear, taste, feel and see them. The senses can also be used to experience texts and poems. If a poem is about autumn and colorful leaves, such a colorful leaf can be passed around, touched and sniffed. When it comes to the sweet cookies at Christmas, they can even be tasted and consciously tasted.
This is how everyday life in kindergarten and especially dealing with poems becomes interactive. The more the children are involved in the activities, the more they enjoy them. The Developing the senses plays an equally important role as the acquisition of language and the development of vocabulary. The reference to their senses as well as the connection to a melody provide children with important language stimuli.
Poems for language development: seasons and occasions
Educators and pedagogical specialists usually try to establish a current connection to seasons and concrete occasions with the activities in the kindergarten. The language development is done in this way with educational elements connected. ÄSimilar to school, children learn more about nature, culture, and their environment. Young children usually do not yet meet the requirements to process a lot of information of this kind. However, children who will soon be entering school should already have a certain level of knowledge.
Not only the entry into school as a further step in development gives a reason for further education of children. Even toddlers have many questions about their environment. Both games and stories provide them with answers. Just like poems, they teach them new terms and increase their competence in articulation. It is important for educators to consider the children’s native language. Through stories and poems, children who communicate at home in a foreign language also learn the language.