What sound does a cow make? Moo! What sound does a chicken make? Bawk, bawk, bawk or cluck, cluck cluck! Many very young children are well aware that a tiger says “RAWR!” Spend a day in the life of a library worker at the Children’s Services desk in the Columbia Public Library and you will hear an ongoing stream of “RAWRs” from the mouths of little ones as they enter the area and spy “Starry the Tiger.” The words and phrases that imitate the sounds we hear are onomatopoeias.
Playing with onomatopoeias by identifying sounds throughout the day, trying to create words to imitate sounds of everyday objects and playing with language in general is not only entertaining, but it also can help your child build the skills to become a reader in the future. Older children delight in paying closer attention to sounds too. Expand the learning further by exploring how various sounds are imitated in languages other than English.
Check out some of these onomatopoeia books and play with turning sounds into words.
- “City Street Beat” by Nancy Viau
- “Boom Boom” by Sarvinder Naberhaus
- “Snow Sounds: An Onomatopoeic Story” by David Johnson
- “Cat Says Meow and Other Animalopoeia” by Michael Arndt
- “Squeak! Rumble! Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!” by Wynton Marsalis
- “Oink-a-doodle-moo” by Jef Czekaj
- “Zoom, Zoom: Sounds of Things That Go in the City” by Robert Burleigh
- “Rap A Tap Tap Here’s Bojangles – Think of That!” by Leo Dillon
- “Mung-mung: A Foldout Book of Animal Sounds” by Linda Sue Park
- “Split Splat!” by Amy Gibson
- “The Listening Walk” by Paul Showers
- “Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin” by Lloyd Moss
The post Buzz, Hiss, Moo, Rawr! Turning Sounds Into Words appeared first on DBRL Kids.