Movement and Music in Speech Therapy: 3 Simple Ways to Increase Speech and Language Skills

Today’s post is all about using movement and music in speech therapy. They will take your push-in sessions to the next level. While many of us already use songs and fingerplays during circle time, there are specific ways to use movement and music throughout push-in speech therapy sessions that will enhance speech and language skills. I’m excited to share 3 fun ways to use movement and music in speech therapy.

Why Movement and Music in Speech Therapy Works

I’m convinced magic happens when we incorporate movement & music in speech therapy! Research consistently shows that musical activities engage multiple learning pathways in the brain. When we add melody, rhythm, and movement to our sessions, we’re not just making them more fun – we’re creating powerful learning opportunities.

“Using music is a multisensory experience that enhances…auditory attention, perception and memory, a sense of body image and spatial relationships, vocabulary development…socialization, imagination, and creativity.”

ASHA: Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

Wow! Looks like music carries a mighty punch! When we thoughtfully incorporate musical elements into our speech therapy sessions, we’re not just engaging our students – we’re creating rich opportunities for communication development across multiple domains.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: EVERY moment counts when providing push-in speech therapy. Music with movement helps us maximize these moments by keeping our preschoolers engaged and excited about learning.

Pair Music with Movement

Ready to elevate your movement and music in speech therapy to incorporate movement? Here are the strategies that have transformed my sessions:

1. Boost Language Proficiency with Movement and Music

Start with a well-known song and customize it to fit your lesson plan. For example, in the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” I changed the lyrics to focus on different emotions, such as “mad, surprised, scared,” and so on, during a unit on feelings and emotions (i.e. “If you’re mad and you know it stomp your feet,” or “If you’re sad and you know it wipe your eyes.”).

Another time I used the tune of “Are You Sleeping” to work on present progressive and first-person verbs, yes/no questions, interrogative sentences, adverbs, and pronouns. With everyone participating, we ran in place and sang:

Are we running? Are we running? Yes, we are. Yes, we are. We are running fast and slow, we are running high and low. Run, run, run…run, run, run.

Pro Tip: Switch this up by changing the verbs, adverbs, and pronouns. You can also work on “no” questions by singing something like this: Is he eating? Is he eating? No, he’s not, No, he’s not. He is jumping fast and slow, he is jumping high and low…,etc.

As I explored in 10 Strategies for Improving Circle Time Behavior and Participation, active engagement keeps everyone focused and participating, so using movement and music in speech therapy is a great way to accomplish this.

2. Build Articulation Skills with Movement and Music:

There are lots of fun ways to build articulation skills with music and movement. For example, to work on /k/, sing this song to the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb:”

Katie Kangaroo can kick, she can kick, she can kick, Katie Kangaroo can kick, Kicking cans with me.

After singing the song together and pretending to be Katie, let your students take turns kicking a can (put sand in it so it won’t go very far) while saying, “Kick the can.”

Keep the tune and change the sound target. Let’s try initial /p/:

Penny Panda paints with pink, paints with pink, paints with pink, Penny Panda paints with pink, she’s painting pink with me. (or just repeat the /p/ sound: “p, p, p, p, p”)

You can also help your students recognize the sound of phonemes by pairing each sound with a specific movement and adding music to it. (There are many ways to do this. See “Essential Resources for Movement and Music in Speech Therapy” below.)

I love using the hand movements from ZOOPHONICS. Their program morphs animals with alphabet letters to provide visual support. Then actions are added to the animal picture to build an association between the action and the sound. To build short and long-term memory, add some music. In my push-in sessions, I combine these movements with the tune, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (i.e. Allie Alligator, a, a, a, Bubba Bear, b,b,b…). You’ll be amazed at how quickly your students learn to recognize and produce these sounds!

3. Increase Phonemic Awareness with Movement and Music

Turn “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” into a powerful phonemic awareness activity! This is one of my favorite ways to use music in speech therapy. Students sit with crossed legs facing another student. While holding hands, they gently rock back and forth and sing the song. When they get to the familiar chorus of “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily” use a different initial sound. In other words, substitute the initial /m/ with other sounds to work on initial sound substitution. For example, replace the letter /d/ and sing: “Derrily, derrily, derrily, derrily, life is but a dream!”

The rocking motion keeps students engaged while they learn to manipulate sounds. It also creates opportunities for social participation and peer modeling. The best part? By the end of the year, your students will be sound-substitution superstars, confidently swapping initial sounds in words without missing a beat. You’ll be amazed as their phonemic awareness skills develop through such a simple, fun activity!

Teach word boundaries with Rhythm-Based Sentence Building. Using a drum, beat each word in a simple sentence. (Students can also use rhythm sticks, tap on the ground, or clap their hands.) The rhythm naturally supports proper word order and grammatical markers. Remember that students should learn word boundaries in sentences before moving on to syllable segmentation. For example, say “The | cat | sleeps” while students repeat each word on the beat.

As they master simple sentences, add descriptive words to the sentence: “The | big | brown | cat | sleeps | soundly.” This technique is especially powerful for students working on expanding utterance length or struggling with word sequencing. The predictable pattern helps students build confidence in sentence formation and builds important phonemic awareness skills.

Essential Resources for Using Movement and Music in Speech Therapy

• Benefits of Music Parent Handout
• Songs and Nursery Rhymes Help Children Develop Early Sounds Parent Handout
• Music Together: Current Research Areas in Music
• Hand motions for letter sounds
• Zoophonics Hand Motions with Animal Pictures
• Interactive Phonics Song with hand motions and melody.

WANT MORE IDEAS FOR USING MOVEMENT and MUSIC IN SPEECH THERAPY?

Transform your speech therapy sessions with the Music-for-Speech-Therapy Starter Pack. Enjoy 16 therapy-ready YouTube videos and 12 carefully crafted songs, each matched to specific speech and language goals. From “All About Me” to pronouns and verbs, these musical resources make learning effective and fun. With student attention spans shorter than ever and therapy time at a premium, you need resources that instantly engage and deliver results. No more scrambling for songs or rewriting lyrics on the fly. Enter your email for instant access to your complete musical toolkit, organized and ready to enliven your therapy room.