Supporting families in understanding phonics through music

Lack of understanding of phonics 

Strong foundations in phonics is important to allow children to have a good start to their learning of reading. The company that I work for, Boogie Mites, have conducted market research and found that families worry about their children being ready for phonics without really understanding what phonics actually means (Lanyado Fund Project, 2022). It is important for early childhood settings to support families to gain an understanding of how they can help their children in learning to read. An effective way of doing this can be through music activities, which is something I advocate for.  

Foundations of phonics 

We know that strong foundations for phonics is not an isolated skill, it is part of communication and language development and fully integrated with a child’s wider, holistic development. However, families often focus on phonics as a school readiness requirement, as being able to read is one of the vital foundations needed to be able to access fundamental parts of the curriculum more readily. Clear guidance is therefore vital for families to support them in understanding how to allow their child to build strong foundations for, not only reading, but initially those strong foundations required to begin learning phonics. We must stress that they should not start with letters before sounds and that the foundations for phonics are part of a wider range of vital skills in supporting children for the transition to school. 

Phonological awareness 

Phonics is used to teach children to read and write, by matching sounds of spoken English with letters. Families are often keen to help their children with phonics, but in my experience they can mistakenly think it is about learning the letters. It is important that they understand that strong sound awareness (phonological awareness) must come before letters. Trying to learn the alphabet, letter names and symbols before the phonological foundations are in place can be detrimental to reading, like building a house on sand. 

Research shows that phonological awareness at age 3 – 4 is the best predictor for reading and writing skills, therefore it is an important foundation for early literacy.  

Phonological awareness is about hearing sounds in the order in which they occur within a word. In England, the Letters and Sounds Phase 1 of the Department for Education (DfE) National Strategy for High Quality Phonics recognises the important part that music activities play and recommends that they should be part of everyday practice in early childhood. Music practice helps children develop a higher awareness of sounds and can provide a way to accelerate phonological awareness for children who have not had so many opportunities to hear and play with language, or have a learning difficulty such as dyslexia. 

“Children with dyslexia find it challenging to hear speech rhythm and speech timing, and in perceiving musical rhythm and timing. Early Years educators can take simple steps to benefit language skills and minimise the impact of dyslexia. Having a rich early repertoire of singing and musical remediation will help matching syllable beat patterns to language before they start learning to read.” Usha Goswami, Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience, Cambridge University

Music activities for phonics  

Traditional music and nursery rhymes are great, they harness some of the benefits evidenced by neuroscience and research studies. 

To harness all of the benefits we need to: 

• Include plenty of rhythmic activities, keeping the beat and playing with tempo and different rhythms. This can be best achieved through use of recorded music written for the early childhood age group.  

• Provide melodic activities, playing with dynamics, pitch, hearing harmonies and different instruments.  

• Engage and motivate all involved, the teachers, parents and children. 

• Provide daily participation in rich and varied active music-making activities (e.g., singing and percussion activities), will develop melodic and rhythmic awareness skills, which will strengthen the auditory processing system, speech, language and phonological awareness.  As a bonus, these music skills also develop other school ready skills as listed above, and lay strong foundations for cognitive function generally. 

The above points are best achieved through use of recorded music written for the early childhood age group. 

Involving families in phonics 

You don’t need to be a musician to lead brain-boosting music-making activities in early childhood!  

Here are 3 key areas with tips for activities that can be practised in early childhood settings and at home to support the development of strong foundations for phonics boosting cognitive function: 

1. Regular moving to and keeping the beat using body percussion, movement and instruments. Music with a strong steady drumbeat will maximize the potential to develop rhythmic awareness

• Use instruments to keep the beat such as shakers, sticks and drums. 
• Keep the beat with actions – marching, bobbing up and down, body percussion such as clapping, stamping and thigh-tapping. 
• Play along with different styles of recorded music with a strong drumbeat. 
• Create rhythmic patterns of sounds, actions, body percussion sequences and words. 

2. Listening to musical arrangements and playing with pitch, tempo and dynamics to refine melodic awareness

• Use the call-and-response method for leading sequencing of vocal sounds and instrumental sounds. 
• Play listening games with different musical sounds representing different actions/sounds. 
• Play and sing along with different styles of recorded music with a catchy melody and introduce harmonies. 
• Use songs and rhymes to tell stories, developing expression in storytelling skills supported by the dynamics, tempo and lyrics of the song. 

3. Playing with words through music activities that focus on initial sounds, rhyming, the sequence of syllables and phoneme sounds will support the development of phonological awareness

• Finish the rhyme line with rhyming words; play with rhyming pairs within a song. 
• Use tapping sticks to tap out the rhythm (syllables) of words within a song. 
• Use sound talk in songs or rhymes to sound out the phoneme sounds of words. 

Brain boosting power of music 

It is important to equip families with the knowledge, confidence and resources to harness the brain boosting power of music, this can be done through:  

• Inviting families to take part in family music workshops 
• Sharing regular posts/communications about the benefits of music 
• Sharing and signposting to music resources 

You will find that as an added bonus, music workshops/projects are a fun, bonding opportunity for families, promoting community cohesion and breaking down barriers of communication such as different languages or cultures.