Are Nursery Rhymes Dying Out?

Most of us will probably have childhood memories of our favourite nursery rhymes, of singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, ‘Sing A Song Of Sixpence’ or maybe ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’.

But with the rise of all-day kids TV channels and many pre-schoolers having CD players and TVs in their bedrooms, our children are being bombarded with a constant stream of advertising jingles, TV theme tunes and pop music. JoJingles founder Gill Thomas fears  that traditional nursery rhymes could soon be a thing of the past.

Gill Thomas founded JoJingles, a nationwide network of pre-school music classes, when she was looking for activities that would stimulate and interest her own children but found that there was a distinct lack of pre-school activities in her home town of Beaconsfield.  Drawing on her own musical background as a pianist and guitarist she started running music classes herself, and as the classes become more popular she created franchises which now run JoJingles classes all over the UK.

It appears that music is low down on the list of priorities for today's parents; only 1 in 10 pre-school children attend music classes compared to nearly half who attend swimming classes according to new research by Jo Jingles. So Gill Thomas is making a call to action to get families singing at home with their kids and for parental and child participation in music groups to be seen as of equal importance to swimming classes and gym tot activities.

According to JoJingles survey, nearly a third of parents think it is already given enough priority in pre-school and primary provision. At home it is the same story. Fewer than 1 in 5 parents say their children hear nursery rhymes in the home. As such they are not exposing their children to the sort of music that will have the most impact and benefits.

Some of the best known nursery rhymes such as ‘Old McDonald Had A Farm’ adhere closely to the pentatonic scale (a musical scale with five notes in an octave. It has been shown by countless studies that children all over the world, no matter what their language or culture, respond innately to this structure.

Jo Jingles founder Gill Thomas is urging us to reclaim our musical heritage by teaching our children traditional nursery rhymes.   “I have such wonderful memories of music in my own family,” Gill explains. “My earliest recollection is of my Grandpa singing ‘My Old Man's a Dustman’ and my father had a deep love of classical music. “

Shake, Rattle & Drool - Baby Music Classes
The Mozart Effect For Children