29 Mar Singing with Your Child
Young children learn a lot from music, especially when you sing to and with them. Singing is one of the five main early literacy skills: Read, Write, Sing, Talk, Play. Include singing in your everyday life with your young child, as you ride in the car, make lunch, and at bedtime in ways you’ll both enjoy!
But first let’s say it doesn’t matter if you are a “good singer.” Children will learn from your singing either way!
Second, your songs don’t have to be traditional nursery songs like The Itsy Bitsy Spider although those are great for early literacy. If you like to start the day singing Pharrell Williams’ song Happy to your child, go for it!
Third, sing in whatever language feels most natural to you.
Singing helps children develop listening skills as they pay attention to hear the words you are singing, more than they would with a recorded song.
Singing slows down speech so children hear the separate syllables of a word: “Be-cause I’m Hap-py…” Children learn that words are made up of smaller parts which helps when they start to sound out words.
Repetition, like a repeating chorus or different verses, is useful to language development. Through repetition they can process new words and concepts as well as language sounds.