Early Literacy Spotlight: Let’s Sing a Story

By FPL_Kayla

Reading together is great, but did you know that singing while you read is a fun and effective way to help your little one build their early reading skills?

Singing to and with your child helps them to hear and pay attention to the smaller sounds in words. Singing words breaks them into syllables and gives words a sense of rhythm. When you sing, you may lengthen vowel sounds, or accentuate consonants at the end of a word. Doing this builds your child’s phonological awareness, or their ability to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words. Phonological awareness is key as a child begins to sound out written words on the page.

“But what if I’m not a good singer? I can’t carry a tune in a bucket!” This absolutely does not matter. Having a beautiful singing voice is not necessary! Sing books to tunes you know well. Songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” can easily be added to books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Author, Jane Cabrera, has a whole collection of children’s picture books that feature nursery rhymes like “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

Any of these books could be sung while you read together. Other sing-able books include:

5 Little Ducks

I Went Walking

The Wheels on the Bus

We're Going on A Bear Hunt

Singing with your child is just one of the five early literacy practices encouraged by Every Child Ready to Read, an early literacy program utilized by Frisco Public Library to encourage parent/child interactions that foster early reading skills. For more information about Every Child Ready to Read and the Five Early Literacy Practices,feel free to visit EveryChildReadyToRead.org and EarlierisEasier.org.

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