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Why Music?
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12 Benefits of
Music Education
Music and the Brain
Benefits of
Kindermusik
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Helps develop social skills
through group interaction.
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Provides for physical
development.
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Builds self-esteem.
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Leads a child toward a
lifetime of joyful music-making.
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Provides a flexible, but
structured routine.
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Enhances brain development
for other skills like spatial and complex reasoning, listening, and
reading.
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Allows a child to creatively
express and explore individual strengths with art, vocal, dance, and
instrumental activities.
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Improves memory and the
ability to learn new information
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Develops a child's language
and auditory skills.
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Is process, not performance
based
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Supports the home as the most
important environment for learning.
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At Home Materials make the
weekly experience live at home again and again.
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What the Experts are Saying
Current research on brain
development confirms that early learning and stimulation such as
activities performed in Kindermusik class greatly enhance a child's
overall development.
Language Development
Playing with objects such
as the scarf play in Kindermusik Village encourages a baby to make
sounds and words and helps her anticipate outcomes which are central to
conversational development and language acquisition. Varying
pitches between high and low in Kindermusik class stimulates these first
foundations for a baby or young child's learning the variety of sounds
of language. Dan DeJoy, Ph.D., Speech-Language
Pathologist
Attention and Inhibitory Control
Kindermusik addresses a
child's development in many various and powerful ways. Repeated
exposure to musical activities develops important cognitive and
behavioral skills. Some musical activities can help develop
inhibitory control--the ability to control or stop one's movements.
Also, changing volume, rate and pitch in songs and activities teaches a
child discrimination, a crucial factor to listening and language
processing. Ed Dougherty, Ph.D, Neuropsychologist
Movement and Physical
Development
Current research has shown
that movement is the key to learning at any age. Our brains fully
develop through movement activities such as crawling, rolling, turning,
walking, skipping, reaching, and much more. When children and
adults participate in Kindermusik classes they are developing both sides
of their brains through structured and creative music and movement
activities. Television, video games and computers have helped to
produce a generation that struggles with learning problems,
hyperactivity and obesity. Many of these problems can be helped
through systematic music and movement exercises and patterns.
Kindermusik classes have always been fun! Now I feel strongly that
they are also part of our essential learning process!
Anne Green Gilbert, Movement Specialist, Author,
Creative Dance for All Ages, and Director, Creative Dance Center
Special Needs Children
Music as a curriculum in
its own right is a valuable one. There are no winners or losers in
Kindermusik class - the only competition is with one's self, which is a
crucial part of educating children with special needs. Kindermusik
incorporates not only the joy of music but also movement, touch,
listening and socialization that are so important for children with
varying abilities. Stuart J. Schleien, Ph.D., Professor
and Department Head, Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism,
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Literacy
When introduced
appropriately, music and literature play an amazing role in the
development of infants and toddlers. I'm happy that Kindermusik
has extended its programs to include this time of life when brain
development is most vulnerable and parents are most in need of support
and direction. Claudia Quigg M.Ed., Founder and
Executive Director of Baby TALK Baby TALK is an organization
headquartered in Decatur, Illinois dedicated to helping parents become
better parents to their children. The program is affiliated with
Dr. T. Berry Brazelton's "Touchpoints" project. In existence since
1986, Baby TALK programs have bee replicated in more than 150
communities across 20 states and Canada.
Development of the Whole Child
Development is not a
straight line, but rather a zigzag pattern. Kindermusik is
developmentally appropriate and allows children to grow at their own
pace. A child's development is a natural and enjoyable process,
and Kindermusik's idea of "a good beginning never ends" suggests just
this - It gives parents permission to be themselves and allows them to
have fun with their children. Dan DeJoy, Ph.D.,
Speech-Language Pathologist
Kindermusik is elegant in
its integrated approach to a child's development. Physiologically,
touch, movement, rhythm and sound are the keystones to developing a
healthy vestibular system and optimizing nervous system and brain
growth. The importance of having families working together, where
everyone benefits from the sense of belonging, gets directly at the
heart of what we, as a society, are needing at this time to raise
healthy, loving children and ensure a world of peace. All of this
is provided in the Kindermusik program.
Carla Hannaford, Ph.D., Biologist, educator
and author of Smart Moves: Why Learning is not All in Your Head
and The Dominance Factor
Music Appreciation
One of my strongest
impressions of Kindermusik's work is the variety of musical selections
for children. The selections are of high quality and of
considerable diversity, such that children can listen and respond to the
music of Bach, Mozart, contemporary composers, and cultural traditions
around the globe. Kindermusik understands that children deserve
opportunities to know a palette of musical colors, and thus through the
program provide windows to the world of people and their artistic
expressions. This rainbow of musical colors is the stuff that
surrounds children through their Kindermusik Experience, so that their
listening, movement, singing, and playing possibilities are grounded in
history and across cultures. These musical beginnings set children
straight for a lifetime of well-considered choices in their musical and
cultural valuing. Patricia Campbell, Ph.D., Professor
of Music at University of Washington and author of Songs in Their
Heads: Music and Its Meaning in Children's Lives and Lessons from
the World
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Did You Know?
Young people who participate in the arts for
at least three hours on three days each week through at least one full
year are:
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4 times more likely to be recognized for
academic achievement
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3 times more likely to be elected to
class office within their schools
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4 times more likely to participate in a
math and science fair
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3 times more likely to win an award for
school attendance
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4 times more likely to win an award for
writing an essay or poem
Young artists, as compared with their peers,
are likely to:
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Attend music, art, and dance classes
nearly three times as frequently
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Participate in youth groups nearly four
times as frequently
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Read for pleasure nearly twice as often
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Perform community service more than four
times as often
(Living the Arts through Language +
Learning: A Report on Community-based Youth Organizations, Shirley
Brice Heath, Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation For the
Advancement of Teaching, Americans for the Arts Monograph,
November 1998)
Music education helps other disciplines of
learning.....
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According to Don Campbell, author of the
Mozart Effect, tracing neurological development through
childhood provides the answer. Prior to a major spurt of
neural integration in the brain during the elementary school years,
learning occurs through movement and quick emotional associations.
For example by age two, the brain has begun to fuse with the body
via marching, dancing, and developing a sense of physical rhythm.
The more music children are exposed to before they enter school, the
more deeply this stage of neural coding will assist them throughout
their lives.
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Skills learned through music carries over
into study skills, communications skills and cognitive skills useful
to all parts of life. For example, research supports that
music helps prepare the mind for specific disciplines of learning.
One such study referenced enhancing children's abstract reasoning
skills, the skills necessary for learning math and science.
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Even our elected officials have realized
the importance of music for our children. Recent federal law,
No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, states, Studying music
encourages self discipline and diligence traits that carry over into
mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government,
economics, arts, history and geography.
The facts are that arts
education......
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makes a tremendous impact
on the developmental growth of every child and has proven to help
level the learning field across socio-economic boundaries. (Involvement
in the Arts and Success in Secondary School, James S. Catterall,
The UCLA Imagination Project, Graduate School of Education &
Information Studies, UCLA, Americans for the Arts Monograph,
January 1998)
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has a measurable impact
on youth at risk in deterring delinquent behavior and truancy
problems while also increasing overall academic performance among
those youth engaged in after school and summer arts programs
targeted toward delinquency prevention. (YouthARTS Development
Project, 1996, U.S. Department of Justice, National Endowment for
the Arts, and Americans for the Arts)
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