"The Music, Movement, and Learning Connection": a review.

In the September 2001 issue of Young Children, early childhood educator and musician Hap Palmer wrote an intriguing article titled, "The Music, Movement, and Learning Connection." This column is a review of his article, which is of significant interest to parents and teachers.

Palmer's approach of using music as a means to stimulate young children's interest in learning is not a new one. The fact that all cultures have music suggests that children are inherently musical, which is supported by children's eagerness to engage in musical play.

Music education, particularly learning to play an instrument, has been found to have many benefits for cognitive development. All music is made up of the fundamental building blocks of melody, rhythm, and harmony. These building blocks are processed by different areas of the brain, which, in turn, is shaped by our experiences. Including music and motion in early childhood education benefits brain development.

Music can enhance our ability to think and reason. According to the American Music Conference (Boswell, 1985), researchers have linked active music making with increased language discrimination and development, improved math ability, improved school grades, better adjusted social behavior, and improvements in spatial temporal reasoning. Research also has shown that merely listening to music affects human intelligence. One can only imagine how much more making music, along with using motion, can affect a child's developing brain.

While research has shown that children exhibit cognitive and academic benefits from music education, music often is considered to be an educational "frill." Cutbacks affecting music classes in school systems make it that much more important for classroom teachers to actively use music in their curriculum. Children are naturally full of energy, and so it is often difficult to sit preschoolers down to teach them about the world in which they live without engaging them somehow. Hap Palmer's article can enlighten early childhood educators and parents about using music to engage children and make learning more fun.

As a trained musician, I fully agree with Palmer's message about music's positive effect on children. I have seen in my own life how music has affected who I have become. It has given meaning to my life. While music may not have as huge an impact on others as it did for me, research has shown how it uses parts of the brain that more structured teaching methods do not. As a mother of two children, I have seen firsthand how children are drawn to music. They enjoy television programs, such as "The Wiggles" and "Barney," that are structured entirely around music, for example. These shows use music to teach such concepts as sharing and emotions as well as more concrete subjects, such as parts of the body, nutrition, and wellness. The creators of these programs know how music can be used to teach young children.

When he started teaching more than 20 years ago, Palmer struggled to engage his young pupils: "I had a sudden insight: Why not work with children's natural desire to move and be actually involved.... So I started combining music and movement and writing songs that invite children to get out of their seats and experience the world through active engagement" (Palmer, 2001, p. 13). What a simple concept, yet educators too often sit children down and teach "at them." Children want to be involved in their own learning. They are like dry sponges, wanting to soak up every experience they can.

Howard Gardner (1983), a neuropsychologist and noted education researcher, proposed that eight types of intelligence exist: verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Palmer explains that music not only directly taps into musical intelligence, or the ability to perceive and create patterns of pitch and rhythm, but also can directly affect the remaining seven intelligences. It is another way of viewing the whole child. "Music and movement, with its rich combination of rhythm, melody, lyric, motion, and group interaction, touches each of these areas" (Palmer, 2001, p. 14).

Palmer tells readers, "I began writing songs that use music and movement to expand vocabulary and teach recognition of numbers, letters, and colors" (Palmer, 2001, p. 14). Any song that is used to teach these concepts works to expand both the linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. The songs reinforce the ability to use and understand the words in the song. For example, a song can be taught that introduces a new word, such as "dinosaurs." Each verse can be used to describe only one particular dinosaur or several different types of dinosaurs while introducing new words, such as "triceratops" or "stegosaurus," in the process. "While the children are having fun, important learning is taking place. Musical elements are introduced, and the rhymes, rhythm, and repetition sensitize children to the sounds of language (phonemes), an important predictor of later success in reading" (Neuman, Copple, & Bredekamp, 2000, cited in Palmer, 2001, p. 14).

A good example of using music to teach logical-mathematical intelligence, or the ability to manipulate numbers and solve logical problems, is the "Multiplication Rock" segments from the Schoolhouse Rock series aired by the Public Broadcasting Service in the 1970s and 1980s. "Multiplication Rock" taught multiplication tables through the use of simple songs. Learning a song is much easier for most children than memorizing multiplication tables.

Palmer taught his students a song called "Alphabet Motion," which invites each child to use his or her own body to form different letter shapes. The children move their bodies (tapping into their bodily-kinesthetic intelligence) and, in doing so, they learn about spatial intelligence, or the ability to find one's own way around an environment and judge relationships between objects in space. "As children shift from shape to shape, they develop balance, coordination, strength, and endurance; learn the elements of movement; and gain a sense of mastery of their bodies and spatial relationships" (Palmer, 2001, p. 13).

Intrapersonal intelligence, or the ability to understand the sell is also touched by music. When children work well in a group, as when they are all moving and singing together in a song, they feel good about themselves. In the process, everyone is having fun!

In addition, Palmer reminds readers that "Children love music and motion for its own sake, and activities need not be centered on a specific concept or skill" (Palmer, 2001, p. 14). I would suggest listening to as many children's songs as possible. If a particular title could be useful, introduce the song to the children and discuss with them what they learned while singing and moving. Palmer suggests that children substitute different words to a familiar song, such as using their names and the animals they have at home instead of the traditional words of "Old MacDonald's Farm."

"Apparently, we are born with all the brain nerve cells we will ever have," notes Palmer (p. 16). Although these nerve cells, or neurons, are already formed, they are not yet fully developed. They need reinforcement through activity and experience. During childhood, the neurons hunger for stimulation. Music and motion provide the perfect opportunity to reinforce the connections between nerve cells. This stimulation causes the neurons to branch out, forming the crucial communication links known as axons and dendrites. Perceptual, cognitive, and motor abilities evolve through the connections between nerve cells.

The benefits of music and motion are numerous, and no special training is needed to have fun with music. By introducing children early on in life to the wonderful universal language of music, the world becomes a much smaller place and children are better equipped to fully enjoy it.

References

Boswell, J. (1985). The young child and music: Contemporary principles in child development and music education. Proceedings of the Music in Early Childhood Conference, Reston, VA.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic.

Neuman, S., Copple, C. & Bredekamp, S. (2000). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for young children. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Palmer, H. (2001). The music, movement, and learning connection. Young Children, 56(5), 13-1Z

Mary B. Foley is a student at Anne Arundel Community College, Arnold, Maryland.