Yoga for Speech-Language Development

Yoga for Emergent Literacy 137

As discussed earlier in this chapter, phonological awareness refers
to knowledge about the sound structure of language. Yoga classes
provide numerous opportunities for children to develop their
phonological awareness skills, especially rhyming. Children’s yoga
classes can include modified sun salutations paired with rhyming
poems. Bersma and Visscher’s (2003) Yoga Games for Children
contains a delightfully rhyming “Salutation to the Sun.”
The children’s yoga book titled ABC Virtues by Christine
Ristuccia contains rhyming poems for each letter of the alphabet
that has a corresponding yoga pose or breathing exercise. Ristuccia
(2010) also suggests that after children practice a yoga pose, the
adult could ask them for word(s) that rhyme with the name of
the pose. For example, after children practice cat pose, the adult
asks, “What rhymes with cat?” Many popular children’s songs also
contain rhyming words that can be paired with yoga poses. For
example, the song “I’m a Little Teapot” contains strong rhyme in
the final words of each line—“stout,” “spout,” “shout,” and “out.”
Figure 8.5 in Chapter 8 on symbolic play illustrates two children
practicing teapot and teacup poses. Children can create yoga
rhyming words, including both real words (e.g. “Cat on the mat”)
and non-words (e.g. “Yoga rhymes with boga, loga, and moga”).
In addition to rhyming, another phonological awareness skill,
syllable segmentation, can be incorporated into children’s yoga
practice. For example, children can tap or clap out syllables in
words, such as in the yoga salutation “na-ma-ste.”
Yoga classes also present the opportunity for children to gain
alphabet knowledge, an important predictive emergent literacy
skill described earlier in this chapter. The adult can instruct
children to think of a yoga pose that begins with a letter of the
alphabet. For example, if the adult says “A,” the children might
suggest airplane or archer poses. Yoga alphabet cards, such as
Christine Ristuccia’s ABC Yoga Cards for Kids and Teresa Anne