Across generations and classrooms, the humble nursery rhyme has quietly served as one of childhood's most reliable bridges into language — weaving together sound, rhythm, and emotional safety in ways that prepare young minds for the work of reading. Today, educators in preschools and early childhood centers are noticing that fewer children arrive already carrying these verses, a shift that places an ancient and informal tradition increasingly in the hands of formal institutions. What was once passed from parent to child at bedtime is becoming, in some homes, a lost inheritance — and those who