Born to sing

(THEME) 00:03

Annalise

Hi, I'm Annalise...

Hrisanthi

I'm Hrisanthi...

Rosie

I'm Rosie...

Christy 00:08

I'm Christy...

Honor

And I'm Honor... and we're the hosts of the podcast Literacy Legends.

?Host

As a Tasmanian, when you hear the word literacy, what springs to mind?

?Host 00:19

I bet it's the statistic that almost half of Tasmanian adults lack the literacy skills they need to get by day to day.

?Host 00:27

It's worrying,

?Host 00:28

So we wanted to know what's being done about it. Is literacy as big as a challenge, as they say it is?

?Host 00:37

Well, yes, it seems to be. But are there stories of hope? You bet there are.

?Host 00:43

We travelled Tasmania to find just some of the people who are working hard to improve these stats.

?Host

They're stories worth celebrating, of hope and progress, and their projects are making a real difference in people's lives.

?Host 01:05

Join us in this series about literacy in Tasmania. 

?Host

Episode 1 - Born to Sing.

Alex 01:17

Children that can connect meaningfully to beat, movement and singing are far more supported and ready for phonological skills and for reading.

(SMALL CHILD MAKES VOCAL SOUND)

(WOMAN SINGS) 01:36 

Some day when I'm awfully low, when the world is cold, I will feel a glow... just thinking and the way you look tonight...

Christy 02:05

Hi, my name is Christy Stickter, and I'm a music teacher on the northwest coast of Tasmania. We're starting the story of literacy at the very beginning. It starts in the womb. Did you know that a baby develops skills for learning to read and write before they are even born?

(WOMAN SINGS) 02:29

Just the Way You Look Tonight...

Alex 02:37

My name is Alex Morse. I'm a registered music therapist, and I'm the Director of Creative Therapies Tasmania.

Christy 02:43

We just heard you singing a lullaby to your to your son. What was he doing in that moment, while you were singing to him?

Alex 02:53

In that moment, I was singing to him, and I was quite close to him, so he could see my face well, very close and intimate. He was looking straight into my eyes as I was looking into his. And you could tell that he was listening to every single word, every single sound that I was making, and he was also moving his mouth, imitating the shapes of my mouth. And you could tell that he was eager to sing as well.

Christy 03:20

And when does baby start learning to talk?

Alex 03:23

So babies can actually hear from about 28 weeks gestation, so before they're even born, and it's from that moment when they start hearing that they're starting to connect with the world outside. And then as soon as they're born, we often hear a baby making making noises and cries and screaming and wailing, and it's from that moment that they actually had physiological opportunities to be able to make their own sounds. 

Christy 03:54

Why are lullabies so important to babies?

Alex 03:56 (INCLUDES IMITATIVE SOUNDS)

It's actually not lullabies, per se that are really important to babies. It's actually singing to babies is the most important thing. Babies aren't born out out of come out of womb, saying things like mum, mum, dad, dad. They come out, making these beautiful vocal sounds, and they're quite high in pitch sounds. And we often hear parents engaging with their babies, making the same sounds in response and communicating with this ah, oh, it's a beautiful baby. Oh, aren't you just gorgeous? I just love you so much. And we call this really sing song, speaking mother ease, or these days we talk about parent ease, which is this beautiful communication that we have between newborn baby and and a significant other person. 

So it's often quite sing song, ah oh, we're not actually talking to a baby like we would. You. Between adults, and it's these beautiful intonations that a baby is hearing and learning that gives them the foundations for speaking. So eventually they start putting in consonants into their sounds. So they go from and then eventually they learn to put more consonants in. They go from dad to Dad, dad, dad, and they're hearing dad over and over again, and they're getting this beautiful reflection and supportive sounds from parents, going, dad, dad, dad, oh my goodness, my baby just said, Dad, dad, dad, dad. And it's only until they become 123, years of age that that sing song becomes a Dad, dad, dad. 

Christy 05:58

And how does it help them to reach and write when they are older?

Alex 06:02 (INCLUDES IMITATIVE SOUNDS)

Well, it is true that we need to be able to support children to be able to have language first before they can actually start learning about literacy and learning about writing. And I actually say it's really important before that we actually need to be able to supporting babies to be able to regulate first. So if we're not regulated, we're not listening, and if we're not listening, we're not learning language. And if we're not learning language, then we're not have the formation and the foundation to be able to learn and to read and write. 

We know as music therapists that when we match a baby's mood with music, it actually holds a baby. And then, if we move music and modulate music in a way that to a emotional state that we would like them to be, it helps a baby be able to co regulate with a parent. So if we have a really agitated baby, a really distressed baby, and they're screaming and they're crying, we will hold an infant. We can hold an infant really close to our body. That's a beautiful heart to heart cuddle is often the way we will we'll do that... and we can match how they're feeling with our voices. 

So we wouldn't come in and sing rockabye baby on the tree top. When you've got a baby that's going screaming, what we would do is we'd actually match how they're feeling. So we'd sing something really upbeat, really high tempo, probably quite loud, and we would move our bodies and whole baby to a with a really strong beat. So we would rock them from side to side in quite a gentle but a strong beat way. And we'd often pat a baby on their back to the beat of the song that we're singing, and then slowly over time, as the baby's feeling the beat feeling, listening to your voice and being held, we would slowly modulate whatever we're singing to that baby to a softer to a more gentler, to a more peaceful sound. 

So for example, if we take something like, Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles. So we can be... (SINGS) Here comes the sun. Do? Do, do, here comes the sun. And I say it's alright.... We might do that for a few minutes, moving our bodies together with baby. And then we can slowly, slowly over time, just slow down as baby is connected with you. So... (SINGS) Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. I say, it's alright.

And in that moment, we're actually not giving a baby a strong beat. We're probably just rocking from side to side to side. And it's obviously the hopeful outcome is that baby is attached with parent, but baby is also regulated and more settled, and possibly it's being able to rock and seeing baby to sleep.

Christy 09:21

And is there any research to compare kids who have been sung to and those who haven't?

Alex 09:28

We've got some really amazing research coming out from Sydney at the moment. A researcher called Anita Collins, her work is supporting young people in engagement in formal music lessons and their outcomes in their literacy and numeracy, and they're showing that children that can connect meaningfully to beat movement and singing are far more supported and ready for foundation phonological skills and for reading when they come to those early years of formalised learning, in fact, they're even saying that children are not ready to be able to do that formalised learning unless they can actually achieve these musical outcomes... which is really exciting work now, and it really gives a foundation to say actually music in the early years is incredibly Important for... being ready for foundational literacy skills. 

(GENTLE MUSIC)

Christy 10:40

And does it matter if the parent can't sing?

Alex 10:48

Who says a parent can't sing? (LAUGHS) So as a music therapist, I believe everyone can sing. There's not anyone that can't sing... the people who think they can't sing generally have had, have been really disconnected to musical experiences. The people who say I can't sing... are people who say I've been told as a young person in in my classroom or in my music classroom that I can't sing. If I had $1 for every time someone said, Oh, the music teacher lined me up in a line, and we had to sing these notes, and half of us went over here, and the other half were put over here, and we were the children that were told that we were just to mime. It's... a, really... sad fact that was, you know, part of Australian culture, but I think that's slowly changing.

Christy 11:41

And does the type of song matter?

Alex 11:45

No, the type of song doesn't matter. I work with lots of parents, and have done over many years at the East Devonport Child and Family Learning Center... and parents often say to me, Oh, my child really likes my AC/DC song, and I say That's brilliant. That's great. That's absolutely a place to start. If singing a parent's favorite song is a way to connect and make a parent feel comfortable, then that's absolutely where you should start.

(LIGHT PERCUSSIVE SOUND)

Christy 12:22

And how does a music therapist improve literacy in Tasmania?

Alex 12:26

I have lots of children that come into creative therapies that have challenges with literacy, but often it's... other things that are bigger goals to support their literacy, their communication goals and their regulation goals that will then support literacy. So I work in supporting children and their families, in using music as a tool to be able to help regulate their bodies and to be able to support their communication. And then once we have those flourishing and well supported, then they're much easier and much well supported and have their own tools to be able to engage well in a classroom. And then they're able to you know, flourish in the classroom. So I often, yeah, start, start there first, before we start talking about literacy,

(SONG: TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTE STAR) 

?Host 13:41

We acknowledge the traditional owners of this land that we recorded this podcast on, the [?Padua] and [?Pakna] peoples in Lutruwita, Tasmania. We also acknowledge disabled First Nations people. Literacy Legends is hosted by [names], and produced by Honor Marino. It was developed in cooperation with Powerd Media and Print Radio Tasmania.