Carolyn Graham’s jazz chants keep the natural stress and intonation of speech (unlike poems or raps), often as dialogue. They build pronunciation, fluency, chunks, grammar and confidence.
Procedure (from the post)
- Set the context; pre-teach vocabulary.
- One or two pre-questions (What does Davina like?).
- A first listening that shows understanding.
- Chant and act it out with puppets, flashcards or actions.
- Split the class to ask and answer; swap; keep rhythm (count in to four).
- Pairs/groups practise, then perform; older children write parallel versions.
- Rounds work better with older children.
Sources
Graham, Jazz Chants for Children; Creating Chants and Songs (OUP).
Connections
Chants train stress-timed rhythm · Songs carry chunks and phonology · Visualise sentence stress with audiograms