Children's knowledge of nursery rhymes can be their path to learning to read and to enjoy reading if handled properly by their teachers and parents. Each session with a child or group of children must be enjoyable, non-threatening, inspiring and challenging for the children. They should be able to feel that their parents and teachers are also enjoying the rhymes, not just helping them because they feel it is their duty to do so. The use of nursery rhymes as a pathway for children's learning to read might be the answer to the present concern, the use of whole word versus decoding skills in teaching children to read, for the use of rhyme provides for both. Furthermore, since children like rhymes, they discover from the onset that reading can provide much pleasure. The also learn that the help they get in decoding and the discoveries they themselves make add to their enjoyment of rhymes. (A list of 12 instructional implications is included.) (RS)