3 benefits of music on early math skills

Music and Movement at Kindermusik

Music and Movement at KindermusikIn early childhood education, the benefits of music include boosts to skills as varied as vocabulary development, gross-motor skills, empathy, phonemic awareness, active listening, and even early math development. Music and movement activities for three year olds (or toddlers or four,- five-, and older!) look like fun and games, but behind all the laughter and smiles is learning.
Consider these examples of the many benefits of music on children.

3 benefits of music on early math development

  1. Spatial awareness. Children who participate in music classes show stronger spatial temporal reasoning skills than those without music instruction.
  2. Counting by rote. Young children learn to count by rote—a memorizing process using routine and repetition. Learning to count by rote helps children develop foundational skills for math, including number vocabulary, memory, patterning, and sequence. Through music and movement activities, children encounter many opportunities to practice counting in a fun, engaging way. In an early childhood education classroom, musical learning examples include counting to three and jumping up during a circle dance or reciting the numbers as children receive (or put away) instruments, or tapping on a drum the beats.
  3. Pattern recognition. The beats, rhythms, and melodies of music lead children to experience patterns through movement, listening, and playing instruments. Listening to music and then matching the steady beat through clapping or instrument play helps children recognize and translate a simple pattern.

Early childhood curriculum uses music to teach early math and language and literacy skills

ABC Music & Me - Early Literacy and Language CurriculumThe National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) advocates for math learning in contexts that simultaneously supports other types of thinking and problem solving, such as music. Research continues to show the benefits of music on mathematics achievement.
Our early childhood curriculum, ABC Music & Me, uses music and movement to teach children early math skills, such as counting by rote, spatial awareness, and pattern recognition. Whether used as a preschool or daycare curriculum or even an after school curriculum, ABC Music & Me can also boost literacy and language skills, self-control, sharing, turn-taking, and other school readiness skills.

For more information about using ABC Music & Me as a preschool or daycare curriculum, email us at info@abcmusicandme.com.

 
 

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

teaching children in Kindermusik - mom and sonMusic 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 develop coordination 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.

Kindermusik Classes - Enroll Now - For a Child's Brain, Body, Heart & SoulFrom music skills to life skills, it’s all there in Kindermusik, where music and learning play!  Find a class near you and try a free Kindermusik class on us today.

 
Written by Theresa Case, whose Kindermusik program at Piano Central Studios in Greenville, SC, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.

5 essential skills taught in early childhood education

Source: She Knows Activity Center

In early childhood education, we understand that teaching children involves celebrating the uniqueness of each child and preparing them for academic success beyond the preschool classroom. As creators of a standards-aligned daycare and preschool curriculum, we also know just how important these early years can be to a child’s lifelong learning abilities. Early childhood education may look like fun and games (and it is!) but the skills learned through these “fun and games” as part of a daycare or preschool curriculum can help a child make a smoother transition to Kindergarten.

5 skills taught in early childhood education that prepare a child for Kindergarten

  1. Early literacy skills, including knowing all the letters in the alphabet by sight and sound, vocabulary acquisition, phonological awareness, and print awareness, help prepare a toddler and preschooler for the more rigorous reading instruction in elementary school.

  2. An elementary school classroom usually includes more students and involves more time sitting at a desk when compared to a preschool classroom. Children with strong inhibitory control abilities can sit quietly, stay focused on the task at hand, think before they act, and behave in other appropriate ways.

  3. In Kindergarten, a child’s fine motor skills get a workout with writing letters and words, drawing shapes, using scissors, and even typing on a computer.

  4. Social and emotional skills help a child make friends, share, participate in classroom discussions, and like inhibitory control, can help a child experience fewer classroom behavior challenges.

  5. Children may spend up to 75 percent of classroom time learning through listening. While hearing is one of the five senses, learning how to actively listen takes practice and can also be a foundational skill for literacy and language development.

Preschool curriculum uses music to teach key skills

When used as part of a daycare curriculum, research shows music can engage young ABC Music & Me - Early Literacy and Language Curriculumlearners and teach them these key skills needed for continuing academic success. For example, a new study shows that children participating in ABC Music & Me, our daycare curriculum, 30 minutes each week experience a 32 percent literacy gain when compared to other children.

Schools, preschools, and childcare centers can learn more about using our daycare curriculum, ABC Music & Me, by emailing us at info@abcmusicandme.com

4 Significant Benefits of Music Education

baby playing drum
(article originally published at realmusicproduction.com)

baby playing drumMusic is a very powerful subject – It has been used since the Greek times for healing, communication, relaxation and for enjoyment. Even before birth we are aware of our mother’s heartbeat and during infancy are relaxed by the song of a lullaby. Every day everybody hears some form of musical pitch or rhythm and it can even be found in nature such as how birds communicate through a song-like speech.
Music is such a powerful force, it creates deep emotions in humans – it is played at weddings for happiness, in horror films and during war for fear and at home for happiness and because of this lends itself to relaxation, stress relief and health therapy – and the connection between music, body, and soul has even been shown to improve physical and mental health.
Skills such as working in teams, communication, self-esteem, creative thinking, calmer attitudes, imagination, discipline, study skills and invention are learned and improved through the study of music and by focusing on the fact that young children are mostly highly receptive to pitch and rhythm – one of the main ways a child learns its language – that we can drive education in music to children to help them with benefits ranging success in society and in life.

Benefit One: Success in Society

“We believe the skills the arts teach -creative thinking, problem-solving, risk-taking, teamwork and communications – are precisely the tools the workforce of tomorrow will need. If we don’t encourage students to master these skills through quality arts instruction today, how can we ever expect them to succeed in their highly competitive business careers tomorrow?” -Richard Gurin Chief Executive Officer, Binney and Smith, maker of Crayola crayons
Music is a part of our society and a part of all communities – every human culture uses music to carry forward its ideas and ideals. A study of the arts provides children with an internal glimpse of other cultures and teaches them to be empathetic towards the people of these cultures. This development of compassion and empathy, as opposed to developing greed and a selfish attitude, provides bridges across different cultures that lead to a respect of other races at an early age.
Music has a great value to our economy – it creates jobs, increase’s tax base, boosts tourism and spurs growth in related businesses. Music study develops skills that are necessary in the workplace such as teamwork skills and discipline – during musical performances all members must work together to create the sounds they wish to achieve and for this regular practice is also required. Music favors working and ‘doing’ as opposed to observing, and these are the ethics employers are looking for.
Because of music’s ability to relax, calm and heal, and its optimal platform for emotions, the involvement with music helps to carve brighter attitudes – more optimism towards the future, less TV and non-productive activities, low use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs and desire to develop individual abilities.

Benefit Two: Success in School

Music requires study skills, communication skills, and cognitive skills and as these are learnt and developed they expand the student’s abilities in other academic areas and help them become better students. – Students with coursework/experience in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT: students in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, and students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation. – College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers. Princeton, NJ: The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001.
The discipline of music, particularly through participation in ensembles, helps students learn to work effectively in the school environment without resorting to violent or inappropriate behavior – According to statistics compiled by the National Data Resource Center, students who can be classified as “disruptive” (based on factors such as frequent skipping of classes, times in trouble, in-school suspensions, disciplinary reasons given, arrests, and drop-outs) total 12.14 percent of the total school population. In contrast, only 8.08 percent of students involved in music classes meet the same criteria as “disruptive.” – Based on data from the NELS:88 (National Education Longitudinal Study), second follow-up, 1992.

Benefit three: Success in Developing Intelligence

Many studies have been conducted on the effects of music in the brain. Scientists say that children who are exposed to music or those who play an instrument do better in school than those who don’t. Recent research suggests exposure to music may benefit a child’s reading age, IQ and the development of certain parts of the brain.
It can be shown that some measures of a child’s intelligence are increased with music instruction – a connection between music and spatial intelligence (the ability to perceive the world accurately and to form mental pictures of things) helps people to visualize and imagine solutions. This helps people to solve problems creatively and is critical to the sort of thinking necessary for solving mathematical problems and even general daily tasks.
“The musician is constantly adjusting decisions on tempo, tone, style, rhythm, phrasing, and feeling–training the brain to become incredibly good at organizing and conducting numerous activities at once. Dedicated practice of this orchestration can have a great payoff for lifelong attention skills, intelligence, and an ability for self-knowledge and expression.” – Ratey John J., MD. A User’s Guide to the Brain. New York: Pantheon Books, 2001.
Along with mental development music study can support the brains physical development – it has been indicated that musical training physically develops the parts of the brain known to be involved with processing language and reasoning, and can actually wire the brain’s circuits in specific ways. Memory can be improved through the linking of familiar songs with objects just as linking images can – past memories and emotions can be triggered by audio.

Benefit four: Success in Life

“Why arts in education? Why education at all? The purpose of education is not simply to inform but to enrich and enlighten, to provide insights into life as it has been led and as it may be led. No element of the curriculum is better suited to that task than arts education.” -David Kearns Now retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Xerox Corporation
Ideally we want our children to experience “success” throughout life itself. The benefits may be psychological, spiritual and physical and with the challenge of making life meaningful and fulfilled and to reach a higher state of development by participating in music we develop self-expression which in turn leads to self-esteem – ultimately helping us to succeed at these challenges.
“Casals says music fills him with the wonder of life and the ‘incredible marvel’ of being a human. Ives says it expands his mind and challenges him to be a true individual. Bernstein says it is enriching and ennobling. To me, that sounds like a good cause for making music an integral part of every child’s education. Studying music and the arts elevates children’s education, expands students’ horizons, and teaches them to appreciate the wonder of life.” – U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, July 1999.
Conclusion
Music is a powerful tool and as seen can dramatically improve and enrich everybody. It makes sense to push music education and to allow young generations to gain these wonderful benefits – higher intelligence through increased creative thinking, problem solving and physically stronger brains, a higher perception of life including better attitudes, strong desires to achieve and fulfill and higher self-esteem, better developed discipline, study skills, concentration, communication and team skills which transfer from education through to career and a better understanding of communities and society.
Edward Droscher is the founder of Real Music Production and works to develop music education systems privately and in schools.

Too Small to Fail, indeed

Too Small To Fail - Early Childhood Initiative

Every day in our music classes for toddlers, babies, big kids, and families, we see (or hear about!) how early childhood education positively impacts a child’s future. We know our early childhood curriculum makes a difference.

Too Small To Fail - Early Childhood Initiative
Source: TheNextGeneration.org

However, we also know that too many children start school without an early learning foundation that leads to school and life success.
A new early childhood initiative, Too Small to Fail, focuses on improving the lives of young children. This joint initiative of the Clinton Foundation and Next Generation caught our attention because of their commitment to improving the lives of young children in ways that aligns with our philosophy (and the latest early childhood research!) including:

  1. Parents are a child’s first and best teacher.

  2. During the first five years of a child’s life, early childhood education can make a significant difference in the development of the brain.

  3. Early childhood curriculum that teaches a young child to love learning continues to positively impact the way a child perceives school, including math and science.

See for yourself:



We look forward to watching this new early childhood initiative develop and discovering how we might be a part. You can join in the Too Small to Fail conversation on Facebook – or comment below – to share your ideas or stories of your own experiences with the power and importance of early childhood education.