The basic tone matching exercises which help young children sing in tune are those based on the descending minor third interval. I used C (above middle C) to A. Most children can reach that pitch easily. On that pitch I had them sing "yoo hoo" as if calling to a little bird sitting on a branch outside the window. The action of calling seems to help some children come up to pitch. Gets their energy going etc etc.

Being a man I used to have to find a child who could sing the interval naturally and then get them to sing to the child who was out of tune. Otherwise little children hear the male voice where it is - the octave lower!

I'd vary that exercise with the playground taunt "na na na na na".

This can be followed by:

The whole thing can be great fun for children. I remember making a train of children who were singing in tune and we'd go all around the class adding one child at a time to this singing train. All the children already on the train would sing "yoo hoo" to the child sitting down. That child would then reply with "yoo hoo" and join the train.

Once they got the hang of those intervals and were singing in tune I'd start (and this sometimes was months later) introducing sequential tone studies using solfa. I'd begin with that first interval, "doh la" having written a scale on the blackboard using do re me etc (and I wrote it as a ladder, i.e. vertically, not horizontally). Then I'd do the same with do la re doh la. The children recognize those melodies as the melodies they've already been singing.

Next I would more or less improvise. doh re doh; doh re me re doh, and so on, in sequence. I usually sang in steps for a few weeks, then began introducing intervals: doh me doh; doh me soh me doh. I always sang the intervals while pointing to them, then had the children repeat what I sang while I pointed to the symbols (doh, re me). It is more ear training than sight singing at this stage, but one is preparing the child to sight sing at the same time and without placing any emphasis on it just then.

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