What Role Does Music Play in Early Childhood Development?
Did you know that music can make you and your little one smarter and happier? Most preschoolers love singing or listening to music. Several studies show that parents who create a rich musical environment at their home for entertainment, it helps their kid to acquire essential musical as well as life skills.
When young children are exposed to music from the earliest ages, its impact is quite profound on their brain development. From lullabies, sing-a-longs, nursery rhymes, and more, music can help them learn the sounds and meaning of words and build motor skills while practicing self-expression. Not only this, it helps them acquire important mathematical skills, pre-reading skills, socioemotional skills and strengthens their memory skills.
According to Carnegie Hall, from enhancing hand-eye coordination to practicing fine motor skills, music plays a crucial role in early childhood development. To help you know and understand why music is one of the best kinds of play for your little one to engage in, we have listed a few reasons in this blog. Keep reading this blog further to know what role music plays in your child’s overall development.
1. Increases Toddler’s Sensory Development
Just like different textures, tastes and colors help build a child’s sensory development, so does music. Exposing children to different types of music provides them with opportunities to actively use their senses as they explore their world through sensory play. It is crucial to their brain development as it helps to build nerve connections in their brain’s pathways. As a result, it leads to their ability to complete complex learning tasks and supports language development, gross motor skills, problem-solving skills, and cognitive development. So make sure that you expose your little one to music at a very young age and try linking it to other activities such as dancing or singing as it increases its effect even more.
2. Improve Numeracy and Literacy
Music is set to a beat that engages children in mathematical concepts, including counting, rhythm and keeping time. For this reason, music is one of the best ways to provide children with opportunities to understand, learn and develop literacy and numeracy skills. Even if your kid is not yet talking, reading, or counting, music helps create several building blocks like these. Through listening to music in the form of rhymes or poems, children can hear and understand the difference between various sounds. Within just a few weeks, they can easily differentiate different sound patterns and learn through repetition. For example, with improved numeracy and literacy skills, children can identify the sound of their mother’s voice and the voice of other people.
3. Boost Confidence
Do you often notice that your kid is having problems with confidence? If yes, then learning how to play a musical instrument may help your child build confidence. When they realize that they can develop a skill on their own, it gives them that confidence and self-belief boost they require. As time passes by, they will become better and even more confident in their abilities.
4. Expands Communication and Imagination
Did you know that infants who hear the language and respond to them tend to babble more and have larger vocabularies? A 2016 study at the University of Southern California’s Brain and Activity Institute found that musical experiences in childhood can accelerate the development of the brain, particularly in the areas of reading and language acquisition. Even before little children can speak or talk, their sound-play and babbling help them develop certain neural pathways that are necessary for speaking and listening. It is much easier for young learners to grasp music and sounds quickly and mimic easily to make sense of the world around them.
5. Makes Children Feel Happy
Needless to say, live music is exciting for you adults, but did you know that it’s even more exciting for your little one? Live music is generally known for creating excitement and delight in young children lifting their mood and protecting them from sadness, disappointment, and even failure. Cooking delicious foods, celebrating and enjoying holidays, performing beloved music and dances are the best ways for children to discover their possibilities of laughing, joking, and to experience positive feelings and emotions, such as joy, affection.
6. Helps Build Coordination
You may have already noticed that your child likes listening to certain pieces of music or dancing to some of the songs they like the most. Even if your child doesn’t understand the song’s lyrics yet, they can surely move to the rhythm or beats of the music. So music encourages their inclination to move, develop fine motor and gross motor skills. In addition to this, if the beats or rhythm is very entertaining, you may notice that your tiny tot starts to jump or mimic your moves which can help them with their strength, balance, muscle development, and improving their hand-eye coordination.
To Sum Up
Now that you know music is a crucial part of your kid’s life and has numerous benefits to offer for your child’s early development as they grow up, try to expose your kid to music as much as possible. Listen to music, sing bedtime stories before they sleep, teach them some songs to add to their daily routine, take them to music with you, or go on long-distance drives by belting them to their favorite tunes. Doing so will help your child become more focused and happy in life.