OMG – it’s finally really here! Nothing has made me appreciate Spring more than living in Minnesota. And here, the first day of Spring simply means the snow is melting. LOL! I’m PSYCHED for longer days and warmer weather…..but it’s not quite here yet and I can’t let myself launch into songs about bunnies and butterflies yet. SO – as it IS still March, it is still I LOVE TO READ MONTH! So, I’ve gathered six literacy skills songs for you that have us working on some beginner reading skills – letter identification, sight words, word families and picture books – that are super fun to move along to! So, the kids are moving along and all those reading skills are just sort of sinking in as they play!
Let’s get to it! First up is my “new” take on the old alphabet song which I call “New Alphabet”. This is from my album Sha Doo Be Doop. Move along with me, sing along to the ABCs in a Pentatonic scale (which is apparently a very natural scale/sound for people to sing and pick up on). Letters appear on the screen as I say them building the literacy skill of letter identification! And you can dance along with me, too, for that full bodied, learning experience that I love!
Next up is the song Two Little Blackbirds. This song is super adaptable and can be simply a song with motions for some fun with opposites. In this video I add in cards with words on them for some fun with sight words. Demonstrating the motion or description of the words on my card through movement help connect the learning for little ones. They don’t have to have these words known or memorized by the end of watching this video – it’s simply great to have them interact with words and their meanings, over and over again, while having fun! This helps with developing our sight words literacy skills.
All righty! I can’t have a post about literacy skills songs without the video from last week: A-Y AY!! It’s my hip-hop, movement and learning song about Word Families! The kids in my online classes LOVE this song, so I finally made a video about it. Again – we have fun with words that describe motion, and we do those motions while we spell. So, it’s first a movement song – and the little ones get to learn some letter identification, and common word family endings all while having fun! This is a great introduction to spelling!
Before we move onto some book songs – I thought I’d add in this video: Opposite Day! It’s a song from my first album Singing & Dancing Together that I adore! In this case i talk about opposites and as I sing each one, the word appears on the screen. And in many cases, the words are made to show their meaning – HIGH is up high on the screen and LOW is down low. FANCY is written in a very fancy font, a NORMAL is, well, normal! And – it’s just a romp of a song that’s really fun to jump around to!
I wrote a little song (and made a video of it) for the book From Head To Toe by Eric Carle last year. And initially it didn’t get a lot of views/interest. But at present it’s starting to get a lot of views. I love this book and song because once again, we get to move along to the words and pictures we are reading. Images of the book are on the screen that we move and sing along to, and I also demonstrate the movements. And of course “reading” pictures and symbols is a foundational building block of learning to read – as is simply beginning to see and learn the direction we turn the pages and the order (left to right) in which we read the symbols and words on a page.
And of course, I cannot have a post about beginning reading songs and videos and not include my Brown Bear Rap!! It’s been a classroom favorite for over a decade. We read and move along, say animal sounds and have a great time! At the very least, for teachers and parents and therapists and – everyone! – it’s a new way of reading an old book. And at best, it gets little ones reading, turning pages and fosters a lifetime love of books and reading!
So – there you have it!! Six literacy skills songs for preschool that are fun to move along with – but are packed with pre-reading learning skills!! How fun is that?
