Research School Network: BLOG: Musical Interaction to Develop Vocabulary in EYFS Aimee Allen is an Early Years ELE based at Spencer Portland Academy in Nottingham

It is 1pm on a rainy Friday afternoon and as the children begin to organise themselves into a circle, I smile as we begin my favourite time of the week.

Mini Music is a time of fun, but as we know, rhymes and songs can develop children’s interest in words and, if an explanation of meaning is provided, can develop vocabulary. The benefits of exposure to early music are significant and are easily integrated into planning for the EYFS as well as other early years frameworks.

Mini Music is the time we have dedicated each week to develop the children’s musical interaction skills. In these sessions we focus on singing, dancing and discussion. It is linked to our core curriculum in EYFS which offers us an opportunity to further embed the vocabulary the children have been exposed to throughout the week. 

Listening to and making music can help children to express emotions, but also help children to self-regulate. Listening to and making music is also linked to communication and language benefits. 

Underpinning our Mini Music sessions is the ​‘Preparing for Literacy’ guidance report. The first recommendation of the guidance report focuses on the importance of using a ​‘wide range of approaches to extend children’s vocabulary’. The guidance report highlights that communication and language provide the foundations for learning and thinking and underpin the development of later literacy skills. 

Our key takeaway from the recommendation was that the rate at which children develop language is sensitive to the amount of input they receive from the adults and peers around them, and that the quality of this input is likely to be more important than the quantity.

Ensuring all children experience effective language support requires a
considered approach appropriate to the needs of individual
children as well as staff training for good implementation. 

We used the EEF’s High Quality Interactions framework and the Supporting oral language development framework as an excellent starting point to monitor and tweak our language and activities for more impact.

An example of how we used the high quality interactions framework was the week our children learnt about Bonfire Night.

In our Mini Music session we wanted to focus on ​‘talking with children’ rather than ​‘to’ children. We wanted to focus on tuning in and listening carefully to what they were saying and observing what they did to show genuine interest and begin to elaborate on their comments. 

We discussed how fireworks may move using words such as ​‘twist, turn, spin, explode’ etc. We spent focussed time discussing this with the children using images of fireworks and providing a bank of vocabulary to describe them and relating it to their own experiences. 

We then wanted to extend their thinking by providing multiple opportunities to hear and use new vocabulary. Through the experience of using ribbons to create the movements to music, students explored new words through movement, they were able to understand them better, retain them longer, and feel more empowered to use them.

This experiential learning linked to our core curriculum has also had an impact on the children’s choices in continuous provision. 

During a recent Mini Music session on Robin Hood, we listened to the following lyrics:

​‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the Glen
Robin Hood, Robin Hood with his band of men’

We discussed what each sentence meant and modelled what this may look like using pictures as a visual aid to help them understand what a Glen looked like etc. 

The adult in this scenario modelled and guided the children to access the song, by giving clarity and experience to difficult words that could create a barrier e.g. ​‘Glen’.

Ensuring the adult provided an explanation coupled with a visual image and then a model of riding through a Glen, offered a clear understanding of the word before they interacted with it, supporting the idea of learning through play.

The children then became Robin Hood galloping round the classroom, shooting arrows, giving money to the poor and huddling with their ​‘band of men’. This modelling was key to bringing the words to life and giving them meaning and context to enjoy the music and create movement.

As the children moved into continuous provision many of them chose to draw/​represent Robin Hood and write his name, some made maps of Robin Hood’s forest and could explain this using positional vocabulary.

This was not explicitly planned, however the stimulus of Mini Music inspired some to continue this journey with writing and mark making which in turn prompted further quality discussion and repetition of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary. 

Below are some pictures from Mini Movers sessions.

Throughout all of our Mini Movers sessions we utilise the EEF guidance for supporting Oral language development prompts for high quality discussion. 

Below I have highlighted which strategies we actively use in a typical Mini Movers session.

During a typical session many of these strategies will be planned in as you can see explained above and many will be used naturally and ​‘in the moment’ as the children’s curiosity and questions prompt rich discussion.

Planning an Early Years timetable is never easy with the demands of trying to balance curriculum knowledge and provide extended periods for continuous provision but Mini Music is something we will continue to prioritise as the impact from the case study has been so powerful.

Our children deserve language equity and Mini Movers is one way we can facilitate this.