Rhymes with Preschool Language! Sequencing with "Hey Diddle Diddle"

Rhymes are wonderful tools for teaching preschool language. In fact, if you really want to supercharge rhymes for boosting language skill, take away the tune, and focus on the sentences.

However, rhymes are not just for memorizing. Interacting with the text of the rhyme gives the best benefits.

One skill you can introduce within a rhyme is sequencing. Say the text a few times, and then ask your child -- "what happened FIRST?" You can model answering this question, or gently correct what your child comes up with. Then -- "what happened NEXT?" Model / gently correct. And finally -- "what happened LAST? Model / gently correct.

This is also a great skill because you are simultaneously targeting past tense verbs -- a crucial language skill, and something a child begins to acquire at age 3, all the way to age 5.

You can practice at home with "Hey Diddle Diddle". First, the cat played the fiddle. Then, the cow jumped over the moon. Next, the dog laughed. And last, the spoon ran away.

The number of steps in retell can roughly coordinate with the child's age. Work on three steps at age 3-4, and increase to four steps at age 4-5.

If you want to practice this, and 30+ other language skills on "Hey Diddle Diddle", check out Smarter Speech's "Hey Diddle Diddle" worksheet on TpT for free! Happy Talking!

Disclaimer : Smarter Speech is a pediatric speech therapy / speech-language pathology practice for toddlers and children providing in-home and teletherapy services in and around Mountain View, CA, and Los Gatos, CA. Smarter Speech Blog aims to provide free speech and language tips for parents educators and therapists. However, this post is not providing speech-language pathology services. This is general information, not speech -language pathology or speech therapy. This article does not assume or create a client – SLP relationship. The author is not liable for any losses or damages due to actions or failure to act based on the content in this article. If you need assistance with a child’s speech or language needs, please contact a speech-language pathologist in your area.