Did you know that children in our hip hop-inspired street dance classes, Perform X, learn to combine rap and cool moves into a brilliant presentation? Everyone knows the importance of regular exercise but how about the linguistic benefits of teaching young children to rap?

These days, rap music is no longer seen as simply ‘music for young people’, with experts recognising its benefits to language development. Recent research carried out by Vodafone found that rapping makes it easier for the brain to coordinate speech by providing a rhythm, a flow, and increasing vocabulary, all of which helps children who stutter. To leverage this, they have launched a free android App, ‘Get the Flow’, which uses tongue-twisters, recording and fun exercises to boost the self-esteem of children who find it difficult to articulate. Find out more at gettheflow.net

Try rapping at home

Young children love to experiment with sounds, and exploring letters and sounds within words is something they will do as soon as they start school. 

• Create raps for each letter of the alphabet, eg ‘C is for Car/we can go Far’, or encourage your child to explore rhymes and rhythms in a sequence ‘Car, bar, far, star’.
• Find a simple poem and read it together out loud. Allow your child to feel the words and sounds by pronouncing them slowly and clearly.
• Find some fun tongue-twisters and see who can say them fastest, without making mistakes!
• Confidence with words leads to confidence in general: Why not try a free class at Perform X –perform.org.uk/x