How Music Classes Prepare Your Child For School

Early childhood education is important, and Kindermusik International believes that you – the parent – are your child’s first and best teacher.  But what to do with your child until he is 7 years old?  We’d like to recommend Kindermusik classes!

9 ways Music Classes prepare your child for school

Music classes in the early years that include parental involvement and focus on learning in a fun, developmentally appropriate way inspire a lifelong love for learning.

Practice with steady beat, enjoying movement activities, and playing instruments help developcoordination and motor skills necessary for cutting with scissors, holding a pencil, or kicking a ball, for example.

Music classes that are teaching children rhymes and then later, the basics of beginning to read music pave the way to literacy.

Music classes give your child a place to practice those all-important social skills, like cooperatively play, sharing, and following directions.

The best music classes will encourage your child to think creatively, developing critical thinking skills and the ability to problem-solve.

In an environment where process, not performance, is stressed, music classes build self-confidence and a willingness to try new things.

Music classes that gradually increase a child’s independence at the class help the child more successfully transition to the school classroom.

In these classes, children have the opportunity to bond and interact with their teacher, learning to listen and respond to someone other than the special adults who surround them at home.

Science and research have proven time and time again that music positively impacts a child in all areas of development – social/emotional, language, cognitive, physical, and language/literacy.

from here

Listen and follow along

Photo "'Read' a song together. Buy a music tape and a corresponding book of lyrics, so you can follow the words along with the music. Even beginning readers can pretend to read a songbook." -Holly Hanke This can become addictive, so be prepared for your child to request the same song on a tape or CD over and over again!

Hearing Patterns

Photo "When children drum along to the rhythms in a song or to their own name, they practice careful listening and pattern recognition. This is one way children hear sounds in words – a skill necessary for word recognition, speaking, reading, and writing. Each time a child is exposed to a new object or experience, new neural connections are made in his brain. Turn a plastic bowl or empty oatmeal container into a simple homemade drum. Let babies learn the cause and effect by just banging on the drum. Allow your toddler to drum away – to a favorite recording or just to the song in his heart. You can also play an easy “Echo Me” game where you chant a short, simple rhythm and they tap it back to you on their drum. You can up the challenge for your preschooler or big kid by asking them to tap back the rhythms in a favorite song or the rhythms of some fun words. -Theresa Case

Singing our way to speech!

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“Singing ability is related to the ability to control speech fluctuations, and speech activities appear to help develop tuneful singing skills. The ability to sing and the ability to converse with expressive speech are closely related. Playing with rhythm speech (chants, poems, rhymes, etc.) as well as simple tonal melodies helps the child develop both singing and speech skills.” (adapted from McDonald and Simons, 1988)

"Tips for parents: So what is the best resource for learning (or remembering!) those all-important songs and chants that help your child become a better speaker and a better singer? You’ll learn a ton of great music and activities in your Kindermusik classes, but you can also borrow from Mother Goose, pull from your childhood memories, or make up your own songs and chants. Piggyback songs, where you adapt a song by substituting your own words, are also lots of fun." -Theresa Case

Bilateral integration

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There is a reason we provide and encourage two instruments, one for each hand. It relates to your child’s fine motor development. We are encouraging bilateral integraton which allows your child’s eyes to track a ball or the words on a page. Bilateral functioning helps keep balance while sitting, standing, and moving. It allows eyes and hands to work together to complete a variety of tasks.

To achieve bilateral integration, a child must first engage in bilateral play which requires holding two similar items, one in each hand. Holding one item would alter his interaction with the instrument and not encourage bilateral exploration, but rather focus on unilateral play.

As fine motor development progresses, a child will move his or her arms simultaneously (like patting knees or drumming hands together). Then he will move both hands symmetrically (think of clapping hands or tapping bells together.) After that is well established, he will begin to alternate like movements (one and then the other in a repeating pattern). The ultimate goal of this integration is to be able to use both sides of the body in non-symmetrical movement cooperatively. Examples of this are holding paper and cutting with scissors or holding strings down with one hand and strumming the strings of an instrument with another.

Literacy

So much of the intelligence children will ultimately have is developed before they even go to kindergarten.  When you read to them, you are building pathways in their brains needed for successful reading experiences.  They will develop auditory perception that allows them to think about how words sound.  Listening to stories helps children enhance their vocabularies and use longer sentences.  Another wonderful benefit of reading to children is that it increases their attention spans and ability to focus on what is being said.  More than anything else, reading to young children gives them a desire to read (Gisler and Eberts). 

Vocal play

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"Playing with vocal inflection – the intonations of melody of language – is a critical part of early childhood vocal development, which may begin as early as 5-7 months of age, and provides older children the opportunity to explore the complexity of communication. Vocal play allows children to practice the precise coordination of lips, tongue, and breathing necessary to speak words." (Adapted from Furuno et al, 1997.)

You can invite an echo or start a song so your child can sing the rest in the car, at bathtime, or any time!

Rhymes can help kids learn!

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Research shows that if a child knows eight nursery rhymes by age four, they are usually among the best readers and spellers by third grade. WHY? A few reasons are: nursery rhymes introduce early phonics, language rhythm, volume, imagination, story sequence, greater vocabulary, and lots of fun! Try omitting rhyming words so your child will finish the line, changing the names in the rhyme, using hand movements, finding library books with rhymes, or using them during a tantrum to help you both feel better. See the fascinating article about this here.

I am an artist: this is my movement picture

 The best way for your child to learn is through the kind of integration represented by this activity. In this one activity there was an integration of movement, music listening and art (symbolic drawings). Drawings and paintings communicate your child’s thinking and often display early attempts to create symbols, a step toward literacy. This weeks family activity #8 continues this experience by suggesting other movement verbs and other fun art projects. 

Choose a movement word to draw on a 3x5 (or larger card) One nice thing about drawing a verb is that there is no "right or wrong" way to draw it. The child can draw how it feels to them and it will be completely accurate. Write the word on top of the drawing and the child will begin to associate the written word with the movement. When you have a few made, break out your CD and choose a card and get moving!

“A profound connection exists beween experience and ability in drawing and interest in and ability to write. Drawings and paintings not only communicate children’s thinking (when they reach the level of drawing that is representative of the enviornment) but also often display early attempts to create symbols. Some of these symbols may be recognized by adults, but others seem to be unique and represent the world in the child’s own way. Children often want to talk about their work and create stories to accompany graphics (Kane 1982)” Early childhood Experiences in lanugage Arts: Emerging Literacy, by Jeanne M Machado, p 347

MOVEMENT AND LEARNING

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Balance, coordination, spatial awareness, directionality, and visual literacy are developed [when movement is used in learning]. These components are developed as children roll, creep, crawl, spin, twirl, bounce, balance, walk, jump, juggle, and support their weight in space. Self-awareness, self-esteem and social skills are also enhanced through movement (Lengel & Kuczala 2010).

Crawling is a cross-lateral movement that activates both hemispheres of the brain in a balanced way... [which] heightens cognitive functions and increases learning. Activities such as reading, writing, thinking clearly, and problem solving are skills that involve both hemispheres of the brain. Cross lateral movements help the hemispheres to work together (Hannaford, Smart Moves).

Try showing or helping your child to cross arms and then tickle their toes while sitting, standing and bending, or kicking forwards or backwards. And doing this to a musical beat is even more fun!