You’ve heard it said, you’ve read it, you’ve felt it in your bones: every moment of the first three years of your child’s life is a learning experience.  By the time he or she is just three years old, in fact, your child’s brain will have grown to 90% of its eventual adult weight—but as with the rest of us, having that weight and making the most of it aren’t the same!

We know this: throughout our lives—and our children’s, too—-music accompanies our growth. From a mother’s heartbeat to a sweet nursery song, the gleeful sounds of “The Wheels on the Bus” to the soothing” Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” the songs and sounds in our lives become associated with events, people, and emotions.

We also know this: together, music and the brain can make magic. In fact, as scientists increasingly turn their attention to the quantifiable effects that early music education can have on a child’s development, the results of their research have been consistent and mind-blowing: specifically, that music can have a dramatic effect on a child’s overall readiness for school in ways we never even dared to expect. 

The good news is that by simply talking, singing, and reading to your child, you are literally “turning on” his or her brain cells. And even more good news: by participating in Kindermusik classes—playing instruments, singing, listening to stories, and learning with music with your child— you’ve already begun not only providing him or her with important social, emotional, and brain-building experiences, but also building reading readiness, one essential component of overall readiness for school.  Just as your child developed important language skills before he or she began to speak, a child also develops literacy skills before being able to read. According to experts, learning to read is dependent on “the foundational skills of phonological processing, print awareness, and oral language.” 

One of the most exciting research revelations is that early music experiences can have a significant impact on literacy and reading. According to experts, learning to read depends on acquiring a variety of skills—including phonological processing, oral language, and comprehension. So, when it comes to these literacy-boosting skills . . . how does Kindermusik fit in?

Here’s where music comes in. Researchers believe that music instruction helps children build active listening skills. Through songs and chants, children develop an ear for the patterns of sounds in words, phrases, and sentences. And as children listen to and sing words set to music, they become familiar with other sounds, rhymes, rhythms, and patterns in language.

Experienced teachers know that movement helps solidify the meanings of new words.  Songs, poems, and rhymes that have accompanying movements to emphasize the word meanings, in fact, have been found to be particularly effective in helping children gather and retain new words in their vocabularies.  Researchers believe that as a playful avenue for children to vocalize and communicate, singing contributes to young children’s language development.
Here’s where it gets neat: music instruction has a proven impact on verbal memory. In a study of children ages six to fifteen, those who had music training had significantly better verbal learning and retention abilities. No kidding!  And the longer the training, the better the verbal memory.  Now try this on for size: Researchers have found that children who participate in music instruction are also more likely to score higher on tests of reading comprehension. A meta-analysis of 25 studies, some involving more than 500,000 students, found a “strong and reliable association” between music instruction and reading comprehension test scores.

Why would children with music experience do better at understanding written words?
Well, partly because of music’s proven impact on phonological awareness and partly because of music’s proven impact on vocabulary learning and memory, and partly because of music’s ties to listening skills or expressiveness. 

The bottom line: early, positive, age-appropriate experiences with music—like Kindermusik—can have a remarkable and research-proven impact on children’s learning, including language and literacy skills (e.g., vocabulary, comprehension, listening, expression); social and emotional development; mathematics and pattern-recognition skills; and even ability to plan, guide, and self-regulate behaviour.
                            

You + Kindermusik: All the Right Stuff

If there’s one thing all the recent research proves without a doubt, it’s that
YOU are the biggest factor in determining your child’s readiness for and interest in reading. Reading to your child, singing with your child, and talking with your child—in other words, surrounding your child with words of all kinds—are the best, easiest, and most fun ways to prepare him or her for a lifetime of reading.  Another thing is clear, though: the kind of learning your child does in Kindermusik—engaging in active, focused listening exercises; building both receptive and expressed vocabulary; expanding awareness of phonemes, the building blocks of language; and exploring an awareness of how the printed word works to communicate—has been proven repeatedly and convincingly to be the kind of learning that is specifically linked to success in school.