Roush 2005 the Reading Teacher

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© 2005 International Reading Association (pp. 584–587)584

BETTY E. ROUSH

The kindergarten classroom is buzzing with

excitement. Students pretend to fall, neigh,

and march as they dramatize the nursery

rhyme “Humpty Dumpty.” Quickly, students ask,

“Can we do another one?” “Can we do ‘Hickory,Dickory Dock’?” Students are engaged in the ac-

tivity of dramatizing nursery rhymes they have

learned. Through the use of words and actions,

these kindergartners are developing their oral lan-

guage and phonological awareness.

When I first began teaching, children came to

school having memorized nursery rhymes. About 10

years ago, I remember discussing with colleagues

that our current students lacked knowledge of nurs-

ery rhymes, and I wondered what the results of this

would be. Smithers (2003) discussed a study that

surveyed more than 700 teachers about their per-ceptions of children’s skills on school entry. These

teachers claimed that half of all children in the

United States now start school unable to speak au-

dibly and be understood by others. The speaking and

listening skills of children have deteriorated, and few

enter the classroom able to recite or sing the simplest

nursery rhymes or songs. Learning nursery rhymes

has been seen as an important first step toward the

grasp of literacy and number skills and as a key to

phonological development (Smithers). Adding

dramatization to nursery rhymes can be beneficial to

the development of oral language and phonologicalawareness (Fazio, 1997).

Oral language acquisition in young children is

crucial to their success as they learn to read and write

due to the interrelationship of oral and written lan-

guage. As kindergartners enter school, many are still

negotiating the language process. This is especially

true for second-language learners. Kindergartners

who are second-language learners begin by listening

to develop their language and to build vocabulary.

The students may not talk except to give the names

of another student or to answer yes and no questions.

They may communicate using gestures and actions.As they develop their language skills, they begin to

use one or two words or short phrases (Weaver,

1994). Nursery rhymes have a musical quality with

different language patterns, rhythm, and rhyme inthe verses. They help children satisfy their fascina-

tion with language patterns and encourage their lan-

guage development (Honeyghan, 2000; Huck, 1976).

Phonological awareness is a powerful predictor

of whether students will be successful in reading. It

refers to the ability to pay attention to, identify, and

manipulate various sound segments of speech.

Research indicates that activities that guide chil-dren’s attention to the sounds within spoken words

and to the relationship between print and speech

can facilitate learning to read (Fazio, 1997; Snow,

Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Adding dramatization to

nursery rhymes enhances and is developmentally

appropriate for teaching phonological awareness

for children in preschool through third grade

(Constantine, 2001; Fazio).

In this article, I share activities for use in the

classroom that require active participation with

nursery rhymes through dramatization. The activi-

ties involve repeated readings, reading in context,and examining the rhyming components.

Rehearsal

When beginning the process, I select a famil-

iar rhyme (see Table 1). I examine each line of the

nursery rhyme to determine which words can be

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dramatized. Realia or pictures are used to help stu-

dents understand words or concepts. I also prepare

a chart with the nursery rhyme that is used many

times as we learn, dramatize, and discuss the

rhyme. I find a picture that illustrates the nursery

rhyme or create my own to aid the children in un-

derstanding the words and concepts.

Creation of the drama

“Humpty Dumpty” is a nursery rhyme that isfamiliar to many. Looking at the first line, “Humpty

Dumpty sat on a wall,” I think about the school

grounds to determine if we have a wall that would

help the children experience where Humpty

Dumpty was. While thinking about “Humpty

Dumpty had a great fall,” I realize that all children

have fallen, so they should understand this concept.

Two difficult concepts are “All the king’s hors-

es and all the king’s men.” Some children have nev-

er seen a horse. I use videos that show horses

galloping and neighing to help them understand

horses. Next I use pictures of horses and allow the

children to gallop around and neigh like horses to

build background. For “all the king’s men,” I use

pictures of soldiers, talk about their role in relation

to the king, and permit children to march or pretend

to ride like soldiers. When examining “Couldn’tput Humpty together again,” we discuss how

Humpty Dumpty is portrayed like an egg. I bring inan uncooked egg and drop it into a container to

demonstrate what happens to Humpty Dumpty.

The first two lines have concepts that should be

easy for the students to understand, so I plan to do

them the first day. The other lines will be done in

two or three sittings depending on how well stu-

dents understand the concepts.

TABLE 1Drama rhymes examples

Nursery rhyme

Hickory, Dickory, Dock

Depending on theversion, the second partmay have a rhyme.

Some versions say,“The clock struck one,and down he run.”Others say, “The clockstruck one. The mouseran down.”

Little Boy Blue

Little Miss Muffet

Realia

Picture of a grandfatherclock and a mouse, and

sound of clock striking

Horn, sheep, picture ofa meadow, cow, corn,picture of a haystack,and video of cow andsheep

Picture of a tuffet(a low seat), a spider,curd (thick, rich part ofcoagulated milk), andwhey (watery part ofmilk)

Drama

1. Stand straight andtall like a grandfather

clock.2. Use the hand torepresent a mouserunning up the clockto the top of thechild’s head.

3. When the clockstrikes one, the hand

jumps off the head.4. Then the hand runs

down other side ofchild’s body.

1. Pretend to blow ahorn.

2. “Baa” like a sheep.3. Eat corn like a cow.4. Put hands up as if

questioning whereLittle Boy Blue is.

5. Pretend to be asleep.

1. Sit.2. Pretend to eat curd

and whey.3. Use hand to

represent spidercoming down.

4. Pretend to run away.

Additional rhymes

Block, cock, flock,shock, tock

Bun, done, fun, sun

Born, morn, torn, worn

Beep, deep, keep, leap,

peep, weep

Cuffet, duffet

Cider, hider,rider, wider



The Reading Teacher Vol. 58, No. 6 March 2005586

The debut

On the first day of the lesson, I have all items

available. I display the picture and words of the

nursery rhymes and ask the students what they can

tell me about the pictures or words. This allows me

to observe their prior knowledge. As I introduceeach line of the rhyme, I follow this procedure.

First, I point to the words as I read. Then I ask the

children to tell me about any of the words that they

heard. After this discussion, I read the line again,

adding the dramatization or realia. I must remem-

ber that I am modeling for my students how to ex-

press the rhyme using voice and actions. When this

is done, we discuss the actions or realia used and

their purpose. There may be a few students who

have just watched; others will have participated.

Now I ask all children to participate. The next step

is to decide whether to do another line or stop un-til the next day. Some of the nursery rhymes are

longer, so they may require more time for children

to develop an understanding. The most important

thing is to meet the needs of my class and plan ac-

cordingly. The example below discusses the drama-

tization that is added to this nursery rhyme.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

(Children pretend to sit down.)

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

(Children fall down.)

All the king’s horses

(Children use arms and hands to represent a horse

rearing its head back as it makes a neighing sound.)

And all the king’s men

(Children march or pretend to ride in place to represent

the king’s men.)

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

(Children shake their heads no and put their hands

together.)

The reviews

After completing the dramatization, we ex-

plore the rhyming words. I ask students to tell and

show me the words that rhyme (wall, fall; men,

again). When these rhymes have been evaluated, I

change the words to produce silly rhymes. This al-

lows students to experiment and build sensitivity to

sound similarities. The first rhyme is kept, and the

second rhyme is adjusted by giving the students the

beginning sound of the new word. Then students

supply the new word. Examples are “Humpty

Dumpty sat on a wall.” “Humpty Dumpty had a

great b__”. The children would reply “ball.” Other

words that could be supplied are call, hall, mall,

or tall. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s

men, couldn’t put Humpty together b__”. The chil-

dren would reply “Ben.” Other words for this verse

are den, hen, Jen, Ken, pen, and ten. The children

enjoy these silly rhymes while developing phono-

logical awareness. At the conclusion of the nurs-

ery rhyme, the children recite the nursery rhyme,

using the dramatization, to other classes at assem-

blies or at parent–teacher meetings.

Nursery rhymes have played an important rolein the past as children learned to read. As teachers,

we need to continue to use them to help children

develop the oral language acquisition and phono-

logical awareness that they require to be readers.

Adding dramatization provides another avenue to

encourage this development. The children become

active participants rather than passive learners.

Roush is a kindergarten teacher at Highland

Elementary School in Inglewood, California,

USA. She may be contacted at 1633 West

Pacific Coast Highway, Apt. 104, Wilmington, CA

90744-1876, USA. E-mail [email protected].

References

Constantine, J.L. (2001). Integrating thematic-fantasy play

and phonological awareness activities in a speech-

language preschool environment. Journal of Instructional

Psychology , 28, 9–14.

Fazio, B.B. (1997). Learning a new poem: Memory for

connected speech and phonological awareness in low-

income children with and without specific language

impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing

Research, 40, 1285–1297.Honeyghan, G. (2000). PoetryRama: Exploring drama

through Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Florida Reading

Quarterly , 36, 15–20.

Huck, C.S. (1976). Children’s literature in the elementary

school (3rd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Smithers, R. (2003, March 4). Silence of the little lambs:

Talking skills in decline. The Guardian. Retrieved July,

20, 2004, from http://education.guardian.co.uk

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Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing reading

difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National

Academy Press.

Weaver, C. (1994). Reading process and practice: From

socio-psycholinguistics to whole language (2nd ed.).

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Roush 2005 the Reading Teacher