For many people (of a certain age, perhaps!), the word Jackanory takes us right back to our early childhood where we listened or watched the BBC programme of that name.  It was the simplest of ideas: someone read a story into the microphone, or to camera.  All you had to do was listen.  The word Jackanory comes from an old nursery rhyme:

I'll tell a story

About Jack a Nory,

And now my story's begun;

I'll tell you another

Of Jack and his brother,

And now my story is done.

Recent research into nursery rhymes suggests that learning them can have a highly beneficial effect on literacy development.  The simple rhymes assist sound recognition - a kind of early phonics (I suppose).  Often children have no idea what they mean; but that doesn't seem to matter.  Sometimes, of course, the meaning is very clear, and you have a wonderful poem:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are!

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.

 

Or, as we are approaching Christmas:

 

Christmas is coming,

The geese are getting fat,

Please to put a penny

In the old man's hat.

If you haven't got a penny,

A ha'penny will do;

If you haven't got a ha'penny,

Then God bless you!

 

Great stuff! If you are thinking of buying a book of nursery rhymes this Christmas, why not try The Puffin Mother Goose Treasury by Raymond Briggs.  It came out in 1966 and is still wonderful!