How music can help improve a child's speaking skills

French, Spanish, English…Gobbledygook?

You can speak French since you studied it at school and understand Italian a little since your last trip to Rome. But you have no idea what language courses can help you learn your kid’s whimsical language. If your child speaks gobbledygook, it’s time to improve their speaking skills!

Denny’s story 

Denny is 8. He is a smart and well-rounded boy. He is really good at maths and sciences but most of the time you can hardly figure out what he’s saying. Teachers complain they can’t understand him when he gives answers in class. Do your children have the same problems as Denny? Then you might have already tried to find info on how to improve your kids’ speech.

Speech therapist sessions are expensive and require a lot of time. And even if your child is already enrolled in these sessions, you might be looking around for some additional ways to improve their speaking skills. You may be surprised to learn that the key could be in music. If you’re wondering how to raise a healthy and skilled child from when they’re a baby, go on reading.

How music can affect speaking skills

Music plays such an important role in our lives, and not only because it evokes great emotion, but also because it has remarkable potential for brain development that we have only recently begun to understand. Music affects and activates multiple areas of our brain at the same time, making us count the rhythm, parse words and understand the whole structure of the melody. The most incredible thing that was found during scientific studies of the connection between music and the brain is that listening, singing and playing music activate the parts of our brain that are responsible for speech. Impulses are created between neurons that look like fireworks. This discovery provides us great opportunities to use music as a powerful instrument to develop and improve the art of speech. This is especially important for people struggling with dyslexia, speaking disorders and those who struggle to learn foreign languages. Music has significant potential of being used in speech therapy. But the most considerable potential of this discovery is for the parents whose kids have difficulties speaking.

Your child may speak too fast, too slow or skip some sounds. Some children may even stay silent and refuse to speak at all for fear of being imperfect or mocked by their peers. Using music in speech therapy can help to break this vicious circle as playing music has a very positive effect on kids’ mental development . All parents wonder how to raise a kid to be smart. Well, practising music can produce all the effects of a magic wand in that regard.

Practise music to improve spelling

In many cases, physical issues are not the main reason for problems with speaking. Psychological impairments can have the same effects as physical conditions and are even more common.

What reasons could there be? Stress, mental trauma, anxiety, mocking, family problems, etc. Most of the time, neither you nor your child know the reason or the connection to speaking problems. And you might not even need a session at a child therapist’s to fix these issues.

You might even have noticed that your child only has speaking problems at school, but they disappear like an evil spell when he comes home or is playing with other kids. The reason is simple. Our brain is less creative and effective when working under pressure. Children face this pressure every day when experiencing this world, trying to meet the expectations of teachers and parents, and building relationships with other children. Music can help to calm their minds and reveal their creativity.  Practising music is a well-known tip on raising children. You might have seen it in numerous articles and heard it in countless  pieces of advice on how to make a baby smarter.

When Denny’s parents became totally desperate to find a way to improve his speaking skills, they decided to try something completely new – add practising music to their son’s daily routine. Denny was a highly motivated and active child, so they didn’t want to enroll him in an academic music class but just provide him an opportunity to play music at home. They were searching for an instrument that would not require many hours of practise but would be easy to acquire and effective in improving Denny’s speaking. A metal tongue drum became a great choice just because it fulfilled all of these criteria. After choosing between various drums, Denny’s parents decided to opt for a RAV drum. If you, like Denny’s parents, are looking for a good, durable and affordable instrument that your child can learn to play by himself – RAV Vast is just what you need. RAV Vast is a harmonically tuned metal tongue drum that is not only played by average musicians but also used in psychological therapy sessions. The RAV is an intuitive instrument and does not require any specific skills or long lessons to learn to play. Children admire the ease of creating harmonic melodies like professional musicians without any practise. And what is also very important for any parent, the RAV Vast has a velvety soothing sound that does not irritate others even when being played by a beginner.

Relax and sing!

So how can you use the RAV to improve children’s spelling? Let your child get acquainted with the instrument first. Talk to them and explain the basics of the tongue drum. Simple improvisation and experimentation with the drum will reduce stress and help them get in the right mood.

A great option to train speaking skills will be singing. Feel free to sing songs with your children – this will provide immense support to their speech therapy. Let your kid think up some simple melodies and some words to go with them.

You can invent your own games. If your child has  problems  producing certain sounds, give them a task to make songs using words with these sounds. Or, alternatively, avoid some words or sounds. For example, think up a song without any words containing ‘a’. Let your creativity lead you! The RAV will provide you with all the opportunities for that!