Every setting should provide children with opportunities to engage in rhythmic play, says early education consultant and author Emma Spiers…
Rhythmic play has long been an essential ingredient of early learning, but I hadn’t always understood its importance until I met Patience.
This super-enthusiastic three-year-old with a love of music and an amazing sense of rhythm reminded me of the rhythmic play I loved as a child and of its potential to unlock learning across so many areas of development, too.
Rhythmic play involves hearing patterns of sounds. Initially, these can be musical, for example, joining in with clapping a steady beat or moving to the rhythm of music.
However, playing with rhythm can also relate to the patterns of sounds in words. Joining in with catchy stories and rhymes with repeatable phrases like We’re Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, or Brown, Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle, are great examples.
Rhythmic games can also involve sequencing clapping patterns, copying and repeating patterns with instruments, or joining in with interactive songs with repetitive actions.
Human brains are hardwired to seek out patterns to make sense of the world, categorising and organising memories effectively in the brain for rapid recall. Most rhythmic activities are intentionally repetitive, so these have amazing memory-building potential.
Teaching early years children to remember is vital for learning overall, and memory is a muscle that needs exercise to work well.
The patterned and repetitive nature of rhythmic stories, songs, and games makes these a powerful workout for the brain!
Patience had a brilliant memory for a three-year-old. She picked things up very quickly, matching, copying, and repeating anything she heard with ease. Her brain was getting the regular exercise it needed through the joy of playing with patterns in sound and words
Rhythmic stories, songs, and games are popular with preschoolers, who are eager to explore patterns in language.
Their vocabularies are growing speedily, expanding by up to eight new words every day. Hearing patterns in words and sounds helps two- and three-year-olds remember new words, so rhythmic play is language development rocket fuel!
As vocabulary expands, three- and four-year-olds are increasingly ready to move beyond using words simply for communication.
At this stage, playing around with rhythm in words is the first building block towards being “reading ready”. It helps preschoolers hear “chunks” of spoken sounds in words, without the added complication of letters. This is the beginning of an important process known as phonological awareness.
Rhythm in stories, songs, and rhymes is created by syllables. These sound like the “beats” in words. Syllables are created by vowel sounds: a, e, i, o, u. All words have at least one syllable or beat.
The vowels are dominant sounds that create the “heartbeat” of words. Everyday words always include at least one vowel, which means they all have syllables. This makes it easy to use toys and objects from around the setting for instant rhythmic play.
Patience loved to play a simple treasure hunt game. I provided a clapping clue (one clap, two claps, three claps or four claps); these corresponded to the number of syllables in familiar objects.
Patience would hunt for an object with the corresponding number of claps, such as:
Patience couldn’t get enough of this game. It was a challenge thinking of words with more syllables for her to find!
Patience is not typical of all children. Children with limited rhythmic play experience often have trouble remembering spoken instructions or blending sounds together when they start reading.
This is because their mental models of patterned language have not been developed enough through repeated, playful language practice.
Playful rhythmic games, stories, and songs can be a way of capturing the interest of more reluctant readers, too.
I’ve consistently observed a strong link between those who experience success with early reading and the repetitive language and literacy experiences they’ve engaged with before school.
Rhythmic play begins with babies! Clapping along to the beat of any song, any time, anywhere, is super easy and costs nothing.
All rhythmic activities build on clapping or stamping a steady beat, so setting a strong foundation like this is key.
Children are ready to move on to building simple rhythms when they are around three years old. Some indicators for rhythm readiness include:
Here are some instant rhythmic play ideas that were a big hit with Patience and her friends. The children loved these games because they were simple and repetitive. They were highly engaged and picked up an awareness of the patterns in language fast!
Follow-the-leader to music – using rhythmic sequences of movements including stamping, waving, jumping or clapping.
Tapping names – using a drum to tap the “beats” or syllables matched to the children. We used this at circle time or as part of daily routines.
Copying clapping patterns – using toys to create simple sequences to clap along to. For example, car, trac-tor, car, trac-tor, car, trac-tor or digg-er, digg-er, am-bu-lance, digg-er, digg-er, am-bu-lance.
As children engage in rhythmic play activities, they become more “tuned in” to the patterns of language. You will see them grow in confidence, developing their own rhythmic patterns as they play.
Like all aspects of child development, hearing, copying, repeating, and making rhythmic patterns develops step by step over time. Look out for whether the children can…
1: Join in with clapping, stamping, or tapping a steady beat as they join in with rhythmic stories, rhymes or songs.
2: Repeat and continue a rhythmic pattern by clapping or using an instrument.
3: Clap the “beats” in their own names and familiar words.
Patience was a great illustration of how rhythmic play builds memory, vocabulary, and an early awareness of syllables as “chunks” of sound.
These were all areas where she made huge progress developmentally, which meant that she was “school ready” when the time came for her to move on.
1 Introduce rhythm by clapping a steady beat with babies.
2 Regularly move rhythmically to music with two- and three-year-olds.
3 Read simple books with patterned language and repeated phrases.
4 Use children’s names and everyday objects to introduce “beats” in words.
5 Play clapping games and learn patterned rhymes off by heart.
Emma Spiers is an early education consultant and author.
Cultivate creativity – paint with plants!
Editors picks
