All Children Are Musical
All children are musical!
Research shows that between the ages of birth and age 5 there is a window of opportunity for learning music that is optimum. Music for kids is natural! All children can achieve basic music competence- that is the ability to sing in tune and keep a beat. Also to express meter by rhythmically accurate movement and the ability to audiate.
Can you hop like a bunny and bang on a drum?
Research shows that children learn best from participation and modeling by their caregivers, regardless of the caregivers musical ability. It’s okay if you sing off key, you are your child’s best singing teacher and singing music for kids!
It is best for children to learn music at this age in experience based , not performance-based classes, focused on fun. “Silly Quotients” are important moments in a typical Music Together class.
Music Together Classes are mixed age with parent education moments throughout the class. You are given the opportunity to take home what you have done in class and do it all week with your child. This is when a lot of the learning will actually take place. The Music Together teachers are the facilitators , you are the teacher!
Young children should be exposed to a variety of tonalities and meters with multi-modal learning experiences.
There should also be plenty of time for improvisation and play. We all know that very young children learn best through playing and should be provided with opportunities for using instruments, movements and their voices for play.
Their musical growth is best achieved in a playful, developmentally appropriate, non-performance learning enviroment which is musically rich, yet immediately accessible to the child’s and the adult ‘s participation.
In our future posts we will talk about what some of these terms mean. What is tonality? What do we mean by multi-modal experiences? Why do we like to do play-alongs? What is a rhythmically accurate movement? Explaining Audiation and Music Aptitude.
For more information and a class near you checkout the Music Together website or Mandy and Wendy’s program at www.aandwmusictogether.com
Amanda and Wendy are are two of the Reading Kingdom’s Summer Activity Guides. Be sure to check out the Reading Kingdom blog every Wednesday for posts from our Summer Activity Guides who will blog about parenting, and fun things to do with your children throughout the whole summer.
