Announcing the Nation's Favourite Nursery Rhyme

 

This year's theme for National Bookstart Day is My Favourite Rhyme. We conducted a survey to see what the nation's favourite nursery rhyme was. Over 2,500 people participated in the survey for National Bookstart Day, which takes on Friday 9 October.

The nation’s favourite nursery rhyme is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

 

The top ten across the UK are:

1.    Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

2.    Incey Wincey Spider

3.    Round and Round the Garden

4.    Baa Baa Black Sheep

5.    The Grand Old Duke of York

6.    If You’re Happy and You Know It

7.    Humpty Dumpty

8.    This Little Piggy

9.    Ring a Ring a Roses

10.    I’m a Little Teapot

Click here to download an exclusive free booklet of the nation's favourite rhymes (English version)

Click here to download an exclusive free booklet of the nation's favourite rhymes (Welsh version)

As part of the survey we looked into attitudes around nursery rhymes and found that the UK is falling out of love with nursery rhymes, with parents claiming that nursery rhymes are simply too old-fashioned to interest their children.  

Only 36% of parents surveyed regularly use nursery rhymes with their children, while almost a quarter admit that they have never sung a nursery rhyme with their child.

More than 20% of young parents claimed not to use them because they were not considered educational. 

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was the favourite amongst all the regions in the UK, apart from the north east which chose Incey Wincey Spider.

One million books of the nation’s top eight rhymes will be produced and distributed in celebration of Bookstart, to help today’s parents develop a strong love of rhymes and give them the confidence to share nursery rhymes with their children.

Thousands of families from across the UK will be invited to take part in a range of activities at libraries, nurseries, schools, early years centres, shopping centres and bookshops to highlight the fun of book-sharing. These will include Bookstart Rhymetimes which enable the whole family to share and enjoy rhymes with children, appearances from the Bookstart Bear and song and story telling sessions.

Borders, Waterstones and independent bookshops across the country will be running nursery rhyme-themed events in support and celebration of National Bookstart Day.