---	THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC IN BRAIN DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN	---

Share Wee Sing with your children and give them a gift for life.

"Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes..." A young child and his parent are happily singing a favorite song while pointing to these body parts in rhythm. Fun? Yes. But only fun? Overwhelmingly, no. An immense number of things are occurring with the cognitive, physical, and emotional development of this child. And, recent brain research is telling us that early experiences actually affect the physical development of the brain. This early "wiring" of the brain shapes the way a child thinks, learns, and behaves for the rest of his life.

While singing this simple "Head and Shoulders" song, language is developing. Vocabulary expands as the child learns about the subject of the song. The words are heard as syllables, or broken into syllables as in "shoul-ders." while singing, the child begins to enunciate the words more clearly, assisting with speech. The words have tone and rhythm and inflection which add to phonemic awareness.

Listening skills are increased as the child mimics the words being heard. He matches the tones of the melody as they move up and down and he corresponds the tones to the rhythm. The singing of the song might be loud or soft, fast or slow. All of this auditory discrimination is enhanced as the child combines rhythm, pitch, words, and movement.

Reading skills begin at this early stage of life. Vocabulary expansion, differentiating between sounds of letters, hearing patterns, pitch, and rhythm, and detecting rhyme are all important pre-reading skills. Again, all of this occurs while singing a simple song.

Attention span, concentration, and memory are all enhanced when children sing, chant, and move to the music. Children love repetition and when singing favorite songs over and over there is both verbal and tonal repetition which assists memory. When singing "Head and Shoulders," there is great concentration to match the words and melody with the movement, which also adds to the attention span. Adding melody to the language enhances the learning process. How did most of us learn our ABC's?

Physical development is also affected by moving to music. Coordination improves as the child feels the beat and moves his body to the rhythm. In this song, the child points to body parts at specific times to specific words and to a specific beat. There are many simple songs that encourage a variety of skills including ball handling, clapping, small and large motor movement, and basic body movements such as skipping, hopping, and marching.

Even emotionally, the child gains from early childhood music. Of course, singing with a parent or caregiver brings joy as they share in the spirit of the song; bonding helps children thrive. But there is also great self-confidence growing as the child remembers the words, matches the tones, and performs the movements in rhythm.

As the child grows older and begins to read music and play an instrument, abstract reasoning occurs as he transfers the meaning of a note symbol into a pitch or key on an instrument. Math skills develop as notes are understood to be fractions of a whole.

Music can be an amazing tool for stimulating the brain structure of a child. And yet, as the neurons connect and the synapses are strengthened by a rich environment of sounds, rhythms, vocabulary, emotion, and movement, the child is simply having fun.

--Pam and Susan