rhymes | Red Apple Reading Blog

Developing a Passion for Poetry

Have you ever considered the benefits of introducing your child to poetry? When we introduce our kids to books and materials that focus on rhyme, they learn to hear the natural rhythms of spoken language. Rhymes help children hear the phonetic connections between words with similar spellings and sounds. Whether your child is an emerging or independent reader, poetry can play an important role in literacy development. Red Apple Reading has a few tips on how to help children develop a passion for poetry.

By Jennifer Campbell, 7 yearsMay 30, 2018 ago

Celebrate Poetry!

Join us as we celebrate poets and their amazing work for Poet’s Day (August 21st)! This is also a good time to reflect on the benefits of poetry for children, some children’s poets we can introduce them to, and explore ways we can encourage them to create their own poetry!

By Jennifer Campbell, 8 yearsAugust 20, 2016 ago

The Importance of Nursery Rhymes

Friday, May 1 is Mother Goose Day. Most of us probably remember reading from some version of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes while growing up. I often read nursery rhymes to my babies from a board book we had in our home library. I have very fond memories of chanting Hickory Dickory Dock, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Humpty Dumpty, and Jack and Jill to my little ones. When I was reading these rhymes to my kids, I mistakenly thought I was just reading a bed time story. Little did I know that I was actually laying a foundation for reading in their lives. Today Red Apple Reading would like to remind parents why the simple nursery rhyme is so important

By Jennifer Campbell, 10 yearsMay 1, 2015 ago

Phonemic Awareness: A Foundation for Reading

Red Apple Reading is committed to children’s literacy! Here we will explore the importance of phonemic awareness as a foundation for reading. You probably already understand the concept even if you don’t immediately recognize the name. Now for the definition: Phonemic awareness is the ability to understand how the spoken word is made up of individual units of sound, and how manipulating these sound units changes the meaning of words.

By Jennifer Campbell, 10 yearsFebruary 18, 2015 ago

What is Phonemic Awareness? Reading Essentials #17

If you’ll recall from our last Reading Essentials post, there are five essential skills your child must learn in order to be proficient in reading. Over the coming weeks, we will be exploring each of these skills in-depth. In this first post, we’ll be discussing the first skill that your child must acquire—phonemic awareness—as well as tips and strategies you can use to support your child along the way to mastery of this skill.

By Tammy Bennecke, 12 yearsFebruary 3, 2013 ago

The Importance of Nursery Rhymes – Reading Essentials #10

Who isn’t familiar with Jack and Jill tumbling down the hill, or Little Boy Blue falling asleep and letting his animals running amuck, or Little Miss Muffet getting scared by a spider? I remember reading nursery rhymes as a child from a big Mother Goose book that was very old, and is still packed away in the attic somewhere. When my daughters were young, they read from a more modern-looking book with larger print and more colorful illustrations.
These stories have been around for hundreds of years, and while fun to chant (I can still recite many of them from memory), they also serve a very important purpose in your child’s reading development. Read on to find out why these old tales are still so important to share today.

By Tammy Bennecke, 12 yearsOctober 9, 2012 ago