Singing in Preschool Promotes Literacy Development

Abstract

Concepts of print are essential, foundational literacy understandings about words in their written, or print form. Concepts include discerning pictures from written words, reading print from top to bottom and left to right with one-to-one correspondence between words read and words in print. Reading aloud from a big book is widely accepted and implemented to teach the concepts of print. We present the repeated singing of a shared text as an alternative or complementary instructional method for teaching concepts of print in the preschool classroom. This article reports major findings that showed substantial developments in preschool student's understanding of print concepts after just 2 weeks of singing a shared text. Additionally, we comment on the joyfulness that song can bring into the early childhood classroom. Based on these findings, we suggest engaging students in repeated singing of a shared text as an instructional approach for teaching concepts of print to preschool students.