Songs are a very portable tool, you can sing while playing, while cooking or while pushing the pram. Even if your child doesn’t sing yet, you can be reassured that they are learning from you! With a young child a fun way to sing together is to associate rhythms and sounds with movement. Associating words with gestures can help to learn the meaning of words, and can also help to memorise songs. For bilingual children this is really important, as many words they find in songs may be new to them. 

With very young children, adults are the key resource! There is no app that can beat a good laugh with your child! You can pick any song or lullaby from your childhood, or ask a friend or a family member to teach you! I meet so many parents who have moved abroad and say that they can’t remember childhood songs in their mother tongue, and I completely sympathise! I remember some songs in my grandparents’ dialect, and parts of other songs my grandmother used to sing to me… and often after a few words I realise that I don’t remember all the words! I still have family and friends in Italy, so sometimes I ask them to help! The internet is also a huge resource and nowadays we have access to an incredible amount of music of all kinds.

One thing to remember is that the best way to make the most of music as a tool for language learning in the early years is to remove the distraction of videos, especially with children under the age of 5. Babies are particularly responsive when the music comes directly from the parent. Singing along with a parent is for the development of reciprocal communication (cit Guardian).
The World Health Organisation recommends to avoid screens for young children (find out more here on the HSE website).
Videos and written lyrics can be a very powerful tool for older children, so your strategy can adapt as your children start to learn to read! (more on this soon!)

So, what works with under 5s? Noise!