Move to Remember!

What does a doe, a female deer, have in common with phonetic memories?

As teachers we know that the secret to getting kids to remember language or parts of language is to activate another part of the brain while focusing on the words. For example, having students move, march, or wave hands while reciting words or word parts engages motor memory. Did you know music can do this too?

In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Sound of Music, Maria teaches the children the syllables for a musical scale by associating an image or action with them. The “doe” for the syllable “do” is “a deer, a female deer”. (The syllables are do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do) How can this apply to your teaching? Let’s look at an example.

Your third-grade class has begun dividing multi-syllabic words into their morphological parts segmenting prefixes, roots, and suffixes. Focusing on the -ation ending of words, you can fit them with the melody from “Frère Jacques”. Imagine this melody and fit in the words: “in-vi-ta-tion, tre-pi-da-tion, va-ca-tion, va-ca-tion” and so on. Students can hold up a finger for each word part as they sing it, or point to each word part in a visual as they sing it.

Other melody ideas to fit into your teaching:

Farmer in the Dell

Bingo (was his Name-o)

Jingle Bells (just the chorus, not the whole song)

I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In

Ring Around the Rosie

The Birthday Song

Nursery-rhyme songs like Ole King Cole