“Willoughby wallaby wee, an elephant sat on me.
Willoughby wallaby woo, an elephant sat on you.
Willoughby wallaby Wustin, an elephant sat on Justin.
Willoughby wallaby Wania, an elephant sat on Tania.”

Raffi may sound like he’s singing nonsense (well, I suppose he really is!), but there’s a method to his silliness. What he is playfully introducing and emphasizing is a pre-reading skill called "Phonological Awareness." In other words, the rhyming and alliteration he so wonderfully uses help a child hear and play with the smaller sounds of words, which, in turn, lays the foundation for sounding out words when beginning to read.

Articles and studies like the one found here support the importance of this skill as a stepping stone for literacy. Caregivers can easily incorporate play that builds phonological awareness, as in the following examples:

• Make a game of clapping out the syllables of words, starting with the child’s name. Then use stomping feet, shaky eggs, an oatmeal container, etc. to make the game more interesting.
• Sing songs, using the same instruments. Most songs break up words into one syllable per note.
• When reading a book with rhyming text, emphasize the rhyming words while reading. “Brown bear, brown bear, what do you SEE? I see a red bird looking at ME.”
• Play “I Spy” using something that can be seen, then rhyme with a second object name that isn’t necessarily visible. For example, “I spy a chair and a bear” or “I spy a leg and an egg.”
• Using a familiar song, substitute another letter at the beginning of each word to emphasize the sound of the letter as well as the alliteration. For example, “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” becomes “bed, boulders, bees and boes” or “wed, woulders, wees and woes.”
• Tongue twisters!  “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” or “A tidy tiger tied a tighter tie to tidy her tiny tail” or “Granny grows grapes in her garden.”