Music, To Your Child’s Ears
In the past children learned to sing from siblings, parents, and extended family, in a process that parallels learning how to speak words.
Nowadays (yes, I used that word) it’s a purple dinosaur who teaches us that it’s much easier to “clean up, clean up” with the help of background singers.
As more children and their families consume media-generated sounds or songs, traditional music might be getting less attention.
I think it’s important for parents to reclaim music in all its forms: songs, poems, fingerplays, chants, and nursery rhymes. Music can help you entertain, soothe, and reminisce with your young child. As an extremely useful tool in the parenting kit, music can be employed to signal or ease the transitions from active time to nap-time. Then back again.
Ages and Stages of music:
The Lullaby – according to Amy Robbins-Wilson, an award-winning expert on music for babies, a lullaby is a” soft and soothing song, usually sung to an infant or small child.” Our blogroll has a link to Amy’s enchanting work.
The Chant – most appropriate for and most appreciated by babies under a year old. A chant is usually a rhythmic song or poem that is spoken rather than sung to music. Like Parentese, it often involves exaggerated facial expressions or gestures. Pat-a-cake is a prime example.
The Fingerplay – involves the hands and fingers to act out the message of the music. Ubiquitous example: Itsy-Bitsy Spider. Babies will love to imitate the hand movements, toddlers will almost accurately execute the movements, and preschoolers will teach you a thing or two about repertoire and manual dexterity.
Musical toys – age-appropriate xylophones and keyboards. In some cases, high-quality recording/playback toys are a good choice. I prefer to use the recording feature of these toys to capture the child’s voice for playback. Amy Robbins-Wilson concurs: “The real magic happens when the child is actively making music. It teaches the child that they are creators — not just consumers of sound.”
Musical toys give multiple benefits in other develoopmental domains:
- Xylophones: upper body development (the large muscles, aka gross motor ability).
- Keyboards: eye-hand coordination (and smaller muscles, aka fine motor ability).
- Playback songs: memory, attention span, and sequencing ability (math skills someday).
Music also helps you encourage your child’s emerging, perhaps tentative, talking skills. The driving beat of a poem, chant, or song lets little ones smoothe over any verbal bumps in the road and just keep up with the music of it.
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Carly Jennings | Language Development | 
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Thomas and I use music all the time for play AND learning. I played music to him while he was in the womb and he sleeps to classical at night. He loves nursery rhymes and all other types of music. Music is a big part of our lives and I think music can be a huge benefit to a child’s growth and development.
Comment by Kathy Sykes — March 18, 2010 @ 12:48 pm
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