Have you ever wondered why you can remember the lyrics to a song from decades ago, but you can’t remember what’s on your shopping list?
That’s because adding words to music acts like a glue that embeds language into our brains.
As the years have passed, more and more research is being done on the effects of music on growing brains. This research validates all our anecdotal experience from our classes. Every week we see the incredible effect that music has on the children participating in our musical adventures.
It would make sense to assume that SINGING SONGS, in particular, has a helpful part to play in language development – in terms of repetition, vocabulary extension, auditory memory, rhythm and rhyme. These are all the building blocks of speech.
However, research indicates that MUSIC ITSELF contributes to speech, even before the words begin to be understood.
Language building blocks
“Infants listen first to sounds of language and only later to its meaning,” says Anthony Brandt. Differentiating different sounds is one of the key components to language development. Babies will start by gurgling and babbling to try and imitate their caregivers speech. These are the building blocks of language.
When you think about the structure of a song – its different musical components, such as tempo, timbre, dynamics – it makes sense why music is so effective in forming the “scaffolding” on which speech is then built.
So when babies hear speech (even before they understand the words), it sounds like a musical performance.
Ready, steady, rhyme
Many of the songs that we sing with our children, have a large component of rhyming words and alliteration. These components of songs help with a baby’s phonological awareness. Research tells us that the more rhyming that is incorporated into a child’s language from early on, the stronger the scaffolding for LITERACY will be later on. This is linked to the strength of the child’s phonological awareness.
Sing along!
One of the most obvious benefits of singing words, rather than only using instrumental music-based activities, is the opportunity to introduce and extend a child’s vocabulary. Because of the way that music impacts our memories, words are more readily embedded when they’re sung, rather than just said. Have a look at our recent blog post on MEMORY if you’d like to read more about this subject.
Bang your drum to the rhythm of the music
Nina Kraus and her colleagues at the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory of Northwestern University (USA) are amazing. They have been researching the links between rhythm, speech recognition and reading. Over the course of their tests they found those who had more musical training not only kept better time, but had better neural responses to speech. Conversely, children who were poor readers tended to have difficulty tapping a consistent beat.
Time to pick up our drums and start to play in time to the music!
As always, there’s so much more that can be said on this subject. The research is overwhelming!
But, one thing is for sure, music-based activities introduced from early on, can have a profound and lasting effect on a child’s language development.