The Scoop on Speech & Language: Singing to support speech

If you have a baby, toddler, or young child, singing to and with them helps develop their speech and language skills.

Babies and young children begin to learn how to form the sounds they hear and see as they watch their parents speak and sing.

As a speech-language pathologist, I sing in almost every one of my early intervention and early language therapy sessions. It is engaging, fun, and has many benefits!

Singing supports vocabulary skills, social interaction, receptive language, and articulation. A few benefits that may not be as obvious, are memory, attention, and auditory discrimination!

3 tips for singing together

1. Sing with your child every day. Sing a couple songs together during daily routines like waking up, getting dressed, play time, and going to bed. Sing a few in the car with music and sing along a walk or drive without music.

Singing without music allows you to slow the song down to give your child more chances to hear each of the words.

Make up your own lyrics by changing the words to songs to go with your daily routines. For example, change the words for “Row Your Boat” to “time to put on shoes, time to put on shoes, first the left and then the right, time to put on shoes.”

Another example is changing the words for “London Bridge is Falling Down” to “all the bubbles falling down, pop, pop, pop!”

2. Add gestures and props. Pair actions with the words to help your child make connections with the words.

“The Wheels on the Bus Song” actions and the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” actions are great examples of gestures to pair with the words as you sing.

Do the hand motions for common nursery songs like these and get creative with other songs and do actions of your own.

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Exaggerating your words, facial expressions, and actions are helpful as well.

Props like simple instruments, or “homemade” instruments like utensils, pots or containers are great to play along.

Bring in toys or finger puppets to be characters in the song to make singing more engaging and interactive. Keep it simple and use materials you already have.

3. Pause and create opportunities for your child to join. Be face-to-face and sing slowly.

Pause to let your child fill in the space or continue singing after a few seconds of waiting. Count to 5 in your head!

If your child starts doing the actions for the song or looks at you to keep singing, continue the song. If you add gestures and props, your child can join by imitating your actions if they’re not ready to sing along just yet.

Here are some song recommendations to start with:

• If You’re Happy and You Know It
• Itsy Bitsy Spider
• Old MacDonald
• Row Your Boat
• Walking Walking
• Five Little Ducks
• Head Shoulders Knees and Toes
• Mary Had a Little Lamb

Use your child’s interests to find new and motivating songs together. If your child loves vehicles and animals, sing songs about vehicles and animals!

I enjoy Super Simple Songs on Youtube for finding new, seasonal, and specific topic songs.

Check out your local library or community centers to see if there are any music classes available for you and your child!

Want more information and tips like these? Visit scoopspeech.com!