Music talks to All

L. Hofmann-Engl

Poster Presentation during MERYC 2011, Helsinki, Finland, 09.06.2011

1. Background

During the year 2009/2010 the department for Children, Schools and Families invested in a national programme called Every Child a Talker. Here, local authorities were given funding in order to device methods for improving language and communication skills of pre-school children. In this context, Croydon commissioned Croydon Family Groups to deliver music sessions under the motto Music Talks to All within ca 40 early years settings including children's centres, nurseries and pre-school setting.

2. Aims

Building on the natural curiosity and interests of young children (0 to 5), Music Talks to All was intended to encourage children to follow instructions, to share and listen to each other, to recognize timbre and mood of music and to produce meaningful sounds.

3. Method

Equipped with a PA system, percussion instruments and a keyboard, the early years settings were each visited twice during two subsequent weeks. During the first session, children were put into a circle passing on instruments clock and anticlockwise. Next, they were shown pictures of instruments and asked to match these pictures against sound clips. Nursery songs were played to them on a keyboard to which they sang along and which they subsequently played on the keyboard with assistance. A piece of Schumann was played to them and they were asked to recognize the mood. At the end of this session children were asked to dance to music. During the second session children were instructed to follow the rhythmic pattern of Beethoven's 7th symphony movement 2. Children then were asked to play nursery songs on the keyboard with assistance followed by a nursery song involving movement. Finally, they were instructed to dance again.

4. Results

Children participated with enormous enthusiasm and completed all tasks with a high level of achievement. Particularly children who initially were reluctant to participate, joint eventually in with few exceptions.

5. Conclusions

Bringing music sessions into early years settings works well on a higher level of positive outcomes then had been expected. There is no doubt that music can be used to enhance the development of commutation and language skills of children.

The poster slides can be downloaded as a ppt file here.