Music to promote early language

Katy Mitchell. With thanks to Nicole Da Rocha for her support and advice.| View as single page | Feedback/Impact

Musical Journey

A Musical Journey Through the Rainforest is a fun interactive storybook, full of musical tracks and fun sounds.

Developed by Advanced Bionics, it contains a range of activities to use at home and in pre-school/nursery to encourage your child to listen and discriminate speech and music, develop new language, read key words, sing, and play instruments.

A series of fun activities are set to music to motivate and engage your child. Clear goals are included in the book to help you see your child's progress.

Using this resource will help you to develop musical ideas when you share other books with your child. It will encourage you to create your own songs in play, daily routines and when sharing books. It shows you how musical instruments can be used to support listening, language and reading. If you don't have instruments, you can use the music tracks are provided.

The Musical Journey book and accompanying sound tracks can be accessed by creating a free account in the HearingSuccess portal.

As monkey journeys through the Rainforest many animals are encountered playing different musical instruments, such as the snake playing a shaker/maraca.

Words (e.g. shick shack) and sounds (Ss, Ss, Ss) have been carefully chosen to develop listening skills and promote speech and language in a fun and interactive way. The picture associations make the sounds meaningful and promote learning. 

For each animal and the associated sounds and words, there is a guide with information about the musical instrument to use and the accompanying lyrics. Clear goals for listening, language and music are included.

 

 

 

References
Anvari S.H., Trainor L.J., Woodside J., Levy B.A. (2002). 'Relations among musical skills, phonological processing, and early reading ability in preschool children'. J Exp Child Psychol. Oct;83(2) pp.111-30.

Corrigall, K.A., & Trainor, L.J. (2011). 'Associations between length of music training and reading skills in children'. Music Perception, 29(2) pp.147-155.

Patel, A.D. (2010). 'Music, biological evolution, and the brain'. In: M. Bailar (Ed.), Emerging Disciplines. (pp. 91-144). Houston, TX: Rice University Press.

Papousek M. (1996) Intuitive parenting: a hidden source of musical stimulation in infancy. In: Deliege I, Sloboda J, eds. Musical Beginnings. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; pp.88 -112.

Welch, G. (2012). Literacy through music.