Methods, compositions and kits for capturing, detecting and quantifying mature small RNAs are provided herein. Embodiments of the methods comprise tailing both the 5′ and 3′ ends of mature small RNA by ligating a 5′ ligation adaptor to the 5′ end and polyadenylating the 3′ end. Other embodiments comprise reverse transcribing the adaptor ligated, polyadenylated mature small RNA with a universal reverse transcription primer and amplifying the cDNA with universal primers.