“Five green speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log, eating the most delicious bugs, yum, yum…” On any given day walking in the Early Childhood hallways this is one of many songs you might hear. Fingerplays and action rhymes provide an opportunity for young children to combine singing and fun with language exploration in a way that enhances a child’s word skills and vocabulary, integral for emergent literacy.

Fingerplays and action rhymes are very brief stories that may rhyme and that include finger or body motions. They help children learn about rhyming and poetry, provide opportunities for listening and speaking, and encourage the coordination of words with physical actions.

These tools also build upon many other important skills outlined below:

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS: the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Phonological awareness, or the awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language, sets the stage for future decoding, blending, and, ultimately, word reading.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: Develops auditory skills such as discriminating between sounds and developing the mouth and tongue muscles. They also help with speech development, rhyming, increasing a child’s vocabulary, and hearing the rhythm of language.

MATH: Develops mathematical skills. They are full of numbers, patterns, sequencing, and counting (both forward and backward). Children hold up the number of fingers on their hands as they sing through songs. For the song "Three Little Ducks," children hold up three fingers. Throughout the song, children may decrease the number of fingers on their hand as they count backwards through the song (i.e. “One little duck swam away, two little ducks were left to play.”)

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT: Coordinating finger plays, action in songs, games and rhymes are helpful to fine motor skill development. When actions are linked to words, it helps increase fine motor skills and improves rhythm and imitative movement. It involves actions and little steps that children follow which helps to develop motor planning.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Builds a sense of being a part of a social circle, connecting with other children, and “reading” actions of others.  

PRE-READING/COMPREHENSION: Encourages children to use their imagination to visualize the stories expressed in the rhyme or song which helps in building comprehension.

KINESTHETIC: Stimulates the auditory, visual, and tactile senses as a form of kinesthetic learning. They also encourage children to use their imagination to visualize the story expressed in the rhyme or song.