Impact

The Nursery Rhymes for Kinder Times™ program was piloted with 4 teachers and 54 families in the 3-year-old program at First Steps Little School in Ossining, NY in 2020.

Teachers and parents were provided with links to digital prototypes of 4 rhymes including music and illustrations. They were also given an emoji chart and a list of guiding questions to support social and emotional skill development. (See Resources section of our website for a more detailed implementation plan.) Teachers shared a rhyme per week with their students, using the guiding questions and the emoji chart to engage in conversations about the situations and emotions of the characters in each rhyme. They extended the learning with additional classroom activities for each rhyme to reinforce social and emotional learning and language development referring back to the emoji chart throughout those activities. To support the learning and strengthen the home-school connection, parents shared the rhymes with their children using the guiding questions and the emoji chart to stimulate conversations in a similar fashion to what the teachers had done in their children’s classrooms during that same week.

After 4-6 weeks:

  • 100% of teachers indicated better manners and more kindness, empathy and gratitude among their students

  • 100% of teachers said they would recommend the program to a friend or colleague

  • 100% of teachers found that the guiding questions facilitated SEL skill development

  • 96% of parents said their children were very or somewhat engaged with the content

  • 91% of parents said there was improvement in their child’s language and literacy skills

  • 94% of parents said they would recommend the program to others

Parent feedback:

  • “Helped my son know his feelings and emotions in addition to improving his behavior.”

  • “Helped my child in respecting and being more kind.”

  • “It is relevant because reading is learning, and if it is with rhymes, it is more fun.”

  • “Through the emojis, children have learned to express their emotions.”

Teacher feedback:

  • “To see the children learning to express their feelings, and at times explain why they are feeling that way, means they have gained from the program and our implementation of it.“ - Synara Okyne-Aryee, First Steps Program Coordinator/Family Specialist

  • “Children have developed social/emotional skills, and throughout the day children are prompted to use kind words like Thank You and Please. The emojis also made a big impact by helping the children navigate through the rhymes and parallel it with their feelings.” - Jessie Fojanesi & Beatrice Aiduenu Murphy, Literacy Facilitator/Instructor & Teaching Assistant

  • “The children were in a very positive mood, they listened, followed directions, cared more about their friends and showed interest in their classmates’ feelings. They learned to recognize, label, and manage their own emotions and they understand others better. The implementation of the rhymes also helped to increase the vocabulary of our Spanish-speaking children.

    Parents were very engaged and some of them made positive comments about the changes they saw in their children at home.

    The implementation of the rhymes also had a positive impact in my own personal and professional success as an educator. It was very refreshing to teach this program and it gave me more tools to implement in my future practice.” - Patricia Ortiz & Sandra Aguilar, Literacy Facilitator/Instructor & Teaching Assistant