The Role Of Music Education In Shaping A Child's Overall Development

 

Music is something that calms down the nerves when you are stressed. Even parents use music to soothe children, and it also expresses joy and love and helps them in engaging and interacting with their kids. And it is important for every parent to know how music can impact child development in terms of improving social skills and benefiting children of every age. 

In this article, we are going to learn about the benefit of music education in shaping a child's overall development.

Explanation of the importance of music education 

In a study at the University of Southern California's "Brain and creativity Institute" in 2016, it was found that musical experiences in childhood can actually accelerate the development of the brain, in particular the areas of language acquisition and reading skills. Learning a musical instrument also leads to improving mathematical learning and even increasing SAT scores.

Not only the academic achievement the only benefit of music education, but it also ignites all the areas of child development, such as skills for school readiness and social-emotional, including intellectual, motor, language, and overall literacy. With the help of music, students get to know how the body and mind can work together.

Exposing music to children in early development leads them to learn the sounds and meaning of the words; easy music theory textbooks can help them understand the music better; dancing, on the other hand, helps children build motor skills while allowing them to practice the expressions. It also helps in improving the memorizing power of the brain.

A brief overview of what the article will cover

In this article, we are going to learn about the different development areas for children with the help of music education and how it makes an impact on their academics. We will focus on points like cognitive development, emotional development, social development, and academic performance.

Cognitive Development 

It is said that reading your child a story while making them sleep is important, but when there's a little music added to the same routine, it may have even greater benefits. There is a large study of over 3,000 2 & 3-year-old children who found that informal music at home, meaning-making up silly songs or exploring instrument sounds, has helped children in improving attention, prosocial skills, and numeracy more than reading together did. 

There are more studies that have been documented in stating cognitive improvements in children who have received music lessons; it also has generated changes to the brain structure of children. Children who have received music pieces of training have shown differences in the thickness of auditory areas in the right versus the left hemisphere; this informs that music education impacts brain structures. 

In addition, children who are learning to play and read music theory textbooks showed strong robustness and connectivity in the corpus callosum, the area that allows communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. Music engagement builds good reasoning skills, counting skills, and pattern awareness. Using music textbook solutions while the kids learn music is a much better approach for them to understand and enhance their development procedure.

Examples of cognitive skills that music education can enhance

Now let's understand the improvement in cognitive skills through examples. There are rhymes or songs that include opportunities to work on counting, such as "5 little monkeys," which is a rhythmic chant that goes down from 5 to 0. Then comes "Ants go marching" and "This old man" here; pairing counting with rhyming words gives a lot of opportunities to add movements and engage in creative play.

Next comes categorization, which is also one of the important cognitive skills to develop. With the help of music education, children are able to categorize things as the same and different, and it also helps them understand that grouping is important. In music, there are many opportunities for categorization, like grouping instruments and identifying sounds that are similar or different.

Emotional Development 

Emotional development is also one of the most important developments in every child. And it becomes a challenge if you are parents of children with autism because then it is difficult to understand how kids feel. They cannot find words to express themselves as it is a difficult task for them, but music can be a powerful tool for them to express themselves.

In the study, it is found that people or children suffering from autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show a strong and early connection with music, and with the help of music, they are able to understand simple and complex emotions in childhood and adulthood. 

Even children who are not suffering from autism find a connection with music that somehow help them understand emotions and thus results in emotional development.

Examples of emotional skills that music education can enhance

Now coming to the examples of emotional skills that music education can enhance in a child's life.

Self-confidence and Leadership Skills

To boost your child's self-confidence and leadership skills, you can ask him or her to play their favorite songs. Just follow your child's lead and see what she or he does. Are they humming lyrics or the sound of the song? This simple activity will give them a chance to lead and also help them in boosting their confidence. For example, in the "one little owl" song, children can choose an animal, sing, and imitate the sound of the animal they choose in their own way.

Empathy Development

It is difficult for a child to make music in the group as they have to watch the people around them for subtle cues to timing, volume, and expressiveness. In order to help your children in this, you can actively start making music with your child in a fun way to support them in learning, helping them to develop self-confidence, self-regulation, social skills, leadership skills, and much more. From here, they will be able to develop empathy towards the other person and understand how to be collaborative and work in a team.

Social Development 

With the help of music, social development naturally flows in. When they are learning any rhyme along with the actions to be performed in it, like taking turns and singing in harmony, their social skills improve from there that moment while music education. The combination of these musical experiences together promotes early child development.

Children learn to dance to the beat, sway with the music, sing lyrics to the tune, and clap their hands to the rhythm. This complex learning helps them to develop intricate abilities for attending to what is happening around them. Even children suffering from autism spectrum disorder pay attention to music education and greatly benefit from it.

Examples of social skills that music education can enhance

Now coming to some examples where music education helps children to enhance their social skills.

Social Skills and Socio-emotional Intelligence

Making music in a group is always a task, even for adults, and doing this music-making challenges children to work with others and helps them to learn the importance of respecting others' space and how they express themselves. They get to learn to work in a team to achieve the same goal. Collaboration, respect, and working as a team are all important parts of social skills.

Academic Performance 

Music education improves language skills in children as music stimulates the brain with its varied sounds and lyrics, exposing students to a large amount of vocabulary in a short time frame. Music also provides revelation to other languages, and it helps in creating a base for the student's ability to communicate and understand in a different language.

With the help of music textbooks and their textbook solution manual, students get a chance to improve their academic performance as well. Their memory, along with the understanding of different things, increases, resulting in better performance.

Examples of academic skills that music education can enhance

Music is a kind of vehicle for excellent memory skills. Have you ever thought that the lyrics of a song are something that is remembered for the longest time? Through catchy melodies and a variety of sounds, children are able to memorize things that they usually won't if they teach in a boring way. For example, just think of singing "A, B, Cs" for "The state capitols" songs.

As stated above, music improves memorization skills. In addition, to song lyrics, students also memorize all aspects of music and steps during the performance. Using these memory skills, they can transfer memory skills to the academic classroom and improve their academic journey.

Conclusion 

In this article, we discussed the role of music education in shaping a child's overall development. Music theory textbooks are a great way to enhance and shape your child's development. Music education not only helps in brain development but also improves children's motor skills, social skills, memorizing things, and much more. Using textbook solutions for your child's music textbooks can help them in improving their development at another level. 

In addition, music is something every single person in this world craves for. There is a tune or song that is close to one's heart, and music education is something that brings you close to it.