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Rhyme and alliteration in poems elicited from young children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Ann Dowker
Ann Dowker*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK.
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Abstract

Attempts were made to elicit poems from 133 children between the ages of 2 and 6. Seventy-eight of the children produced 606 poems between them. Sixty per cent of the poems contained phonological devices; 42% contained rhyme and 26% contained alliteration. There was no obvious age trend as regards the use of rhyme but the frequency of alliteration declined with age. There were no significant age differences as regards the relative frequency with which different phonemes were manipulated in rhyme and alliteration. The possible functions of such sound-based language play in language development are discussed, with special reference both to children's sound play in crib speech, and to the development of phonological awareness and its importance in learning to read.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 1989 , pp. 181 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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Footnotes

*

I thank the staff and children of the Coram Children's Centre, the University of London Institute of Education Nursery, the Wimbledon Park Nursery and Preparatory School and the Wimbledon Park Primary School for their help and co-operation. I am also grateful to my supervisors, Dr Neil O'Connor and Professor Hazel Francis of the University of London Institute of Education, for their advice and help. I would like to thank Dr Lynda White of Imperial College, University of London for helpful discussions about statistics. The research was carried out with the aid of a post-graduate research grant from the Medical Research Council.

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