About the Song
In this Sing to Speech episode, we are targeting spelling and reading consonant vowel consonant (CVC) words— specifically those that contain the vowel letter, ‘A.’ The first part of this song explains the steps to reading a three letter word including the lyrics, “I see three letters, I’m going to blend them together.” With the repetitious nature of this song, the lyrics are easily memorized and the rules to reading and writing the CVC words can be remembered and applied by those students listening. Because of the way the music is easily memorized, students can practice this spelling/reading skill within music, while also remembering the steps explained within the song to practice this skill outside of music.
The second part of this song assists children in putting this skill to use in reading these words successfully through rhythm and musical structure. Within the structure of the song, students are encouraged to break down the sound of each individual letter, soon blending the sounds of the three letters together within the given rhythm of the song. As the tempo of the song increases, the blending of sounds also increases in tempo and the word being read eventually becomes clear. This particular video introduces the words, ‘cat,’ ‘bat,’ and ‘hat,’ but this song can be utilized with any CVC word.
Opportunities for Expansion
Expand this experience by taking a look at CVC words that include other vowel sounds in order to increase your student’s success in this skill. You may want to eventually build in opportunities for children to spell the CVC word over reading them in order to build this skill even further. To facilitate spelling, change the lyrics to something such as: “I hear the letters, we’re going to spell the word together.” This will encourage students to utilize the same method of recognizing the letter sounds within the CVC word, but introduce the idea of “sounding out” the word phonetically to spell it successfully.