Children and the Importance of Music

Throughout history, in all cultures, music has been an integral part of human life. The importance of music in the education of a child is great. We all know how music affects our mood and influence our emotional world, especially when we are talking about children. Music, through the expression of our positive and negative emotions, contributes to the development of a balanced personality. Music participation provides a unique opportunity for literacy preparation. Whether the children are singing, playing, or listening, teachers direct them to listen and hear in new ways which exercises their aural discrimination. Playing instruments and adding movement to the lessons teaches children about sequential learning which is essential in reading comprehension. In the head start program where I do my field observation, we sing songs all the time. We sing during music class where the music teacher plays guitar but we also sing throughout the day. Singing a song during transition time is a great way to help children adjust to the new activity. For example, when its cleaning time, we sing “clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up clean up, everybody do their share” which makes kids really enjoy cleaning. In the morning, when we are talking about the weather, we sing “how’s the weather, how’s the weather, how’s the weather outside? Is it sunny, is it cloudy, is it rainy or is it cold?” and kids do the moves while they sing, which really helps them learn the differences between weathers. I also really liked the example our lecturers use when they said that singing their names in a song over and over again is really important. I have a 2-year-old nephew and I wrote a song for him where I included his name when he was six months old. We used to play that song over and over again and whenever we said his name, he got really happy and clapped his hands. Music can