Head start on mother's knee

Education researchers are of the opinion that parents who sing nursery rhymes with their children at home are helping to give them a head start.

Children whose mothers and fathers read, played and sang with them were better prepared to make progress in literacy and numeracy than those who did not.

Parents are able to influence their children's academic development even if they themselves did not achieve a particularly high standard of education.

Pre-school education has an important role to play in overcoming the effects of family poverty on children's learning. But what goes on at home in a child's early years is also a big factor, the researchers found.

Children whose parents had higher levels of academic qualifications were better on entry to school than other groups. But even those who had failed to do well at school could have a positive impact on their children.

A professor of education psychology at Oxford University stated that "if the mother reads to the child, plays rhyming games, sings songs, talks to the child and takes the child to the library, these factors are more important and can compensate for a lower education level".

A report from London University's Institute of Education concluded that children whose parents taught them to sing songs and nursery rhymes as three-year-olds later "showed a significant positive impact on language scores at school entry".

Children who played with numbers and letters at home also had better literacy and numeracy skills once they started school.

There was also evidence that children who did not attend nurseries or playgroups before formal school had "markedly lower" levels of ability than those who had pre-school experience.

The study concluded that those attending nursery schools, nurseries "combining care and education" and nursery classes gained the best educational start. Playgroups were rated "consistently lower than all the other types of provision".