The importance of music for babies and young children.

Emma Jane Evans gives her views on Kiddy Jingles

Having worked for over 10 years as a children’s speech and language therapist with a special interest in language and literacy development within the early years settings, one thing which I cannot stress enough is the importance of music, rhythm and rhyme in the development of language and pre-literacy skills in babies and young children.

When I became a mother for the first time 4 years ago, I therefore started to explore some of the numerous music groups that are available and stumbled across ‘Kiddy Jingles’ while it was in its infancy.  Having been rather disappointed by some of the other music groups I tried out, I was immediately impressed with what Kiddy Jingles offered and have been a great fan ever since as have my two little girls, now aged 4 and 2.  I am so excited that Vicky is now in the process of franchising ‘Kiddy Jingles’ as I really think that it has a winning formula and should be available to as many kiddies and parents as possible.

So why do I like it so much?  Well firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the music Kiddy Jingles uses is huge fun with lots of actions to join in with, puppets, bubbles and other interesting props and lots of instruments to bang, shake and rattle!  The songs are a lovely mixture of old favourites, often with new verses, and the fantastically catchy and individual Piccolo Music songs.  Secondly, these songs are then carefully put together into half-termly programmes with a different topic each half term, for example transport, animals, etc. - great for early vocabulary development.  Thirdly, unlike many other music groups, the songs are then repeated every week so that even the smallest babies in the group start to anticipate favourite songs and even start trying to join in the actions.  The repeated songs help the older children (and the parents!) to become familiar with the songs so they can quickly start joining in with the singing.  Repetition is key to helping children in the early stages of language development and the range of actions/gestures and other props are also excellent for supporting early language acquisition.  The simple structure of all the sessions also helps children gain in confidence as they know what to expect each session.  Finally, the variety of the session in terms of action songs, bubbles, instruments and puppets helps keep even the more distractible children happily engaged!

The biggest draw of Kiddy Jingles is that, not only does it meet my stiff criteria for an excellent music group, most importantly, my two little girls from when they were tiny to now toddler and pre-school age, have adored the groups.  The songs are taken away and sung and danced to on a daily basis at home and in the car and Vicky is fondly known as ‘Vicky Jingles’ by my eldest!

Emma Jane Evans
Mother & Speech Therapist
25 February 2009