Musical Parenting Tip:  Make Animal Sounds with Your Child
Why?
Speech is a complex motor task.  One of the most important steps in speech development is the ability to copy or imitate mouth movements and sounds.
Since young children imitate sounds more easily than words, and are motivated by things that make fun sounds, imitating animal sounds is a great place to start!
The consonants and vowel sounds in vocal play will become words and phrases as your child strengthens his verbal skills.
Including simple nonsense syllables, like ‘lah,’ (from Kindermusik Sing & Play’s ‘Hello’ Song), or ‘ba ba’-ing like sheep, or ‘moo’-ing like a cow, allows each child to tap into pre-established skills, increasing the likelihood that he will join in the vocal play.  This, in turn, improves your child’s confidence, and encourages her to continue exploring language.
How?
  • Learn how to make some puppets!  Maybe your puppets make sounds?  How can you turn puppet-play into vocal play with your child?
  • Create a family circle dance to Did You Feed My Cow.  With each verse, enjoy making the animal sounds with your child, as you dance.
  • Take a  trip around the barnyard, and talk to the animals, in their own language.
  • Turn on the Hello-Lah song (from Kindermusik’s Sing & Play CDs), and sing along with your child!  Who else, in the house, can you sing a ‘la – la’ hello, to?