The Literacy Connection | ||
WHY SING? READING SKILLS THE LITERACY CONNECTION PDF VERSION |
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Language
Acquisition to Early Literacy |
The Role of Music |
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Babies develop sense of hearing while still in the womb. | Babies hear and respond to music, which is their first language | |
Babies are drawn to oral language through rhythm, repetition, and rhyme. | Songs have rhythm, repetition, and rhyme built in. | |
Babies and young children retain language based on repetition. Finger plays teach vocabulary |
Songs have
repetition built in Finger plays sung invite children to join in, vocabulary is better retained. |
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Young children begin to learn that words are made up of smaller sounds | Melodies divide words into smaller parts, and present language in patterns that make sense to the brain example: Alphabet makes no sense until presented in a song where the letters are learned and retained in a pattern | |
Young children notice print, understand it links to words they hear; follow print to learned nursery rhymes and songs to connect the two. |
Children already
know melodies to nursery rhymes, and can participate in “reading” For example: children are more likely to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, than say the words if simply read from a book |
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Children learn sounds of letters and phonemes in preparation for learning to read | Songs naturally divide words into syllables and sounds, so they are internalized. The built in repetition and rhyme increase understanding and retention. |