Parents, Early Childhood Educators, and PreK/K Teachers

Help Children Prep their Brains for Reading

You are a child’s rock star!

Sing your day away!

• Chant rhymes and sing songs. Repeat them often and children will join in.

• Use a sing-songy voice instead of speaking—children will pay more attention.

• Sing the same greeting song with children every day.

• Sing a lullaby before children go to sleep.

• Sing-read picture books of children's songs.

• Ask children to sing into a toy echo microphone and hear the echo sound.

Keep the beat

Online Metronome or app Metronome (Android) TrueMetronome Lite (Apple)

• Ask children to pat the beat with both hands on their laps while chanting poems and nursery rhymes, and singing songs. Pat on other parts of body.

• Use egg shakers to keep steady beat while singing songs.

• Sing songs with motions to the beat such as, "The Wheels on the Bus."

• Open Online Metronome or pitch pipe phone app. Set to 120 beats/minute. Ask children to pat with both hands on their laps exactly at the same time as the click sound. Change to a faster beat. A slower beat.

• When children are able to keep the beat, ask them to clap the words of a song—every syllable. For example, in Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, "Twin-kle" gets two claps.

• Use rhythm sticks to tap the way a song goes—every syllable of the words.

Match pitch

Note: most children can only produce sounds from middle C on up.

• Slide the voice up and down like a siren. Ask children to echo.

• Sing two different pitches—one high and one low. Ask children which one was higher.

• Sing and hold a pitch on "oo" and ask children to match.

• Ask a child to sing and hold a pitch on “oo” and you try to match it.

• Use the Online Tone Generator or pitch pipe phone app to play a pitch, match it on "oo," and ask children to match. Online Tone Generator or pitch pipe app Pitch Pipe (Classic)

Sing in tune

• Sing a familiar song with children, trying to match their pitches.

• Sing a familiar song, but stop before the last word of each phrase, such as "Twinkle, twinkle, little _____." Children fill in the word.

• Trade off singing each phrase of a song, first the adult, then children.

• Sing "yoo-hoo" or "cuck-oo" (the sound of a cuckoo clock). Children echo.

• Record children’s singing with a phone and have them listen to it.

Play singing games

• Sing folk songs, such as “The Wheels on the Bus,” and encourage them to do motions to the beat.

• With older children, play singing games, such as the African American hand-clapping game “Miss Mary Mack.” After they have learned it well, modify the game to practice reading skills, such as making up new rhyming words, such as, Miss Mary Ann, Ann, Ann, all dressed in tan, tan, tan…”