In the video Debbie Bezuidenhout, who teachers pre-school children at Genesis Educare School, Johannesburg, tells us how much the children love the THRASS SING-A-LONG songs. At first she was a bit apprehensive about them taking part in the THRASS Family SING-A-LONG concert at Linder Auditorium in May 2009 because they were so much younger than other children. However, they started teaching the children three months beforehand and when they got to the auditorium for the concert not one of them was nervous. They just went on to the stage and had a wonderful time, as we can see from their performance of ‘Saw you in the sun’. 

Debbie had previously used THRASS to teach children in Grade 2 and she feels that introducing SING-A-LONG and joining it up with the rest of the THRASS programme has now made it absolutely awesome for picture location and finding associations with different things. The children are so enthusiastic and it’s covering so many skills: perceptual, auditory, numeracy and motor, and of course it also involves movement.  

The two- and three-year-olds are learning the SING-A-LONG songs and, although some of them are not perfect in their pronunciation, they see it as fun, which is a very positive start; and they are hearing the different sounds, which is already building an environment of literacy. The children are also introduced to the books and they just can’t wait to look at the lovely pictures in them, especially the SING-A-LONG book, and they are of course also learning to read.  

Clare Keeler, the Principal of the school, tells us that the children initially just learnt the THRASS raps, which they would chant as they walked around the school. But SING-A-LONG has been far more user-friendly for them and they just love the songs. She feels it is essential for children to be exposed to numeracy and literacy at the pre-school stage in order for them to be well-prepared for their formative schooling. 

In the video we see the children in class singing ‘My crazy Granny’, ‘Ring the bell’, ‘My dog Spot’ and ‘Fly little bird’, and using the SING-A-LONG interactive book on a whiteboard. We also see them in an informal handwriting lesson where they are tracing the letter ‘L’ in both upper and lower case versions. This involves fine motor skills, a bit of numeracy and literacy, and they are also copying the picture from their THRASS charts which involves perceptual activity. They move on to formal handwriting lessons in Grade 1 and the work they do in pre-school fine tunes their motor work in preparation for this. 

The children are also being introduced to the Word Grid and Phoneme Grid sections of the THRASS Phoneme Machine. Debbie Bezuidenhout explains that learning sounds is normally only taught in Grade 2 but now by the time the children get there they are already aware of these, as they can just sit and play around with the Phoneme Machine and explore.   

There could hardly be any better recommendation for THRASS and SING-A-LONG than Debbie’s final words: “I think THRASS and SING-A-LONG are exciting and absolutely wonderful. I have never had such a good time in 26 years of teaching.”

Children enjoying their THRASS experience!