You begin a chant and, halfway through the first line, several children join in. They’re keen, but they haven’t yet heard the words they’re being asked to copy. Before working on a closer echo, make your turn and their turn easier to recognise.
Make the two turns clear
Introduce the words wave, hands and rest with an accessible demonstration. Establish one cue for listening and a separate invitation to respond. You might say, “Hear my whole line. When I say ‘your turn’, you can copy it or keep listening.”
Use the children’s usual hearing, visual and communication supports. Children can sit, make a small gesture, speak or use familiar supported communication; no one needs to perform alone. Foundation English includes listening while another person speaks in informal and structured interactions, as outlined in QCAA’s English content sequence. Victorian early-childhood guidance also suggests modelling listening and using vocal or nonverbal exchanges to practise taking turns.
Try these two short lines
Say both lines once while the children listen:
Little wave, hello, hello.
Gentle hands, rest down low.
Give a small wave with the first line and lower your hands comfortably with the second. Offer an agreed alternative gesture where needed. For the first few exchanges, keep the wording, delivery and actions the same.
Leave room for the echo
Say, “Little wave, hello, hello,” with the agreed action. Stop speaking and leave a clear space. Then say, “Your turn.” Stay quiet while children echo the line, make the gesture or continue listening.
Repeat the exchange with “Gentle hands, rest down low.” There’s no required pause length. Leave enough room for children to process the line and prepare a response. NSW early-childhood literacy guidance explains that pauses can allow this response time; the listen-pause-echo sequence here is one way to apply that idea in a Foundation classroom.
If children begin with you
Calmly say, “I’ll show my turn, then leave room for yours,” and demonstrate the boundary again. If the full line is difficult to hold for the next exchange, try “Hello, hello” with the same gesture, then return to the complete line.
Notice exactly what happens. One child might echo “hello” after the cue, another might wave and another might listen for another round. Use that information to choose a manageable next step: repeat the line, shorten it temporarily or offer another listening turn.
Bring the lines together when they’re familiar
Once the exchange is familiar, invite the group to repeat both lines together. Listening means hearing your model without having to respond. Echoing means copying one line just heard. Repeating the whole chant means remembering the familiar order of both lines.
Ask, “Which words came again?” Children might say “hello”, point or gesture towards a supported choice, or use another familiar communication response. Early-childhood guidance recognises repeated chants and attention to returning sounds as useful language experiences. This also connects with the Foundation English focus on exploring and reproducing rhythm and sound patterns in literary texts such as poems, rhymes and songs, described in the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 sequence.
If you want a longer sequence
Clap, Chant and Copy - Foundation includes five lessons, four original chant displays and teacher-read listening scripts. No audio recordings are supplied. The two-line activity above is separate from the resource.
Keep the next turn manageable
Hearing, echoing and recalling the complete chant are related, but they aren’t the same task. If the echo becomes muddled, model the same line again, shorten it for a turn or let the group listen once more.
Next time, try one line, leave a little space, then invite the echo. Once the two lines are familiar, bring them together.