Nursery Rhyme Shared Reading

One of my favorite resources each month in the Experience Early Learning themed kits are the Rhyme Time posters. December’s rhyme was Hickory Dickory Dock. The rhyme coordinates wonderfully with our Winter in the Woods theme and mouse forest creature. I always laminate and display my poster for the whole month over our light table at child height so they can see it. See how I used the poster for a nursery rhyme shared reading experience.

What is shared reading?

A shared reading activity is interactive. It is an experience that allows the students to join in or share in the reading of a book or text with the guidance and support of a teacher.

This post details our shared reading activity. It may seem tedious but it really makes use of the materials provided and gets to the heart of teaching children reading skills. It’s a way to model reading skills.

To introduce the activity, I clipped the poster of the nursery rhyme up on our circle time board, which instantly draws the children’s attention.

Using the poster, we recited the rhyme, thought about rhyming words, and the children pointed to the words as we read. They were also able to identify and circle letters on the poster that they know.

Goals of the Shared Reading

Here are my desired outcomes of the nursery rhyme shared reading. The child will:

• listen to the nursery rhyme
• will repeat the rhyme
• identify rhyming words
• will circle a letter on the poster that they know
• point to words while we read the rhyme

The Hickory Dickory Dock nursery rhyme interested everyone. Some already knew what it was because of the pictures. I read the title and stated that the large letters were the title. This is a rhyme. It’s called the Hickory Dickory Dock.

What does it mean?

What does that mean? Hickory is a type of tree but together Hickory Dickory Dock is silly. It doesn’t really mean anything. But two words sound alike. Hickory and Dickory. That’s because each word has some of the same letters. I underlined them and we named the letters.

We recited the rhyme a couple of times – once on my own, then with the group. We also sang it. Then we also talked about the word “struck” and how a clocks strike or ding when it’s on the hour. That led to me showing them on the clock what 1 o’clock looks like and then the clock “dings”.

If it’s three o’clock, the clock dings three times and we all did the “dings” together. The kids took turns looking for letters on the poster and circling them. K saw a letter “k” and wanted to circle it.

C knows her letters quite well, so we talked about letters and words and I had her circle a word. W wanted to circle something too, but he needed a little help finding his letter, which K and C were super eager to help him. He did a little scribble on the page.

Overall this was an excellent and engaging activity for everyone. I like breaking down literacy activities like this and looking for ways to make them meaningful for each one in my mixed-age group. Thank you to Experience Early Learning for providing wonderful resources!

More Nursery Rhyme Activities

• Sing a Song of Sixpence
• Itsy Bitsy Spider
• This Little Piggy
• Nursery Rhymes, Fingerplays & Songs Printable Cards
• Pat A Cake Nursery Rhyme
• What’s in the Box? Nursery Rhymes