The early years of development in a child from the age of just a few months old right through to the age of ten are influenced by music.
Music forms a crucial part of the learning process for children and babies as it helps prepare their brains for learning as they move through the years. Whether they are singing, dancing or playing an instrument, it helps them to identify sounds and patterns while also helping them to enhance their language and co-ordination skills.
Infant Music Helps Baby with Their development
The sensory development of a child is crucial, whether that is taste, textures or colors. However, exposing your child to different types of music will help to encourage the creation of more pathways between the cells within their brains. This can also be enhanced by pairing music up with different activities.
At a young age, babies are able to differentiate between different sounds and even after a few weeks, they can identify the voice of their mother. Therefore, exposing your baby to music will make it possible for them to decode both sounds and words.
There is a reason why nursery rhymes are such a big hit with babies and parents alike. It helps them to learn through repetition as well as making it possible to identify a wide range of sounds. The rhythmic nature of music can help them to learn about anticipation for what is coming next in a song and that teaches them to put the patterns of sound into a sequence. As a result of this, children create the perfect base for both literacy and numeracy.
Your child is unlikely to be able to understand the lyrics of a song but they can most definitely pick up on the rhythm of it. Therefore, you will find that your child dances to music or picks out certain songs that they like. Music encourages children to move around, which helps them to develop their fine motor skills and their gross motor skills. Of course, with this movement comes muscle development, strength, and balance.
When they get to the point of jumping and dancing to the music, as a parent, you can then give them an instrument to use. This will give them the opportunity to improve their hand-eye coordination and improve their grip.
Understanding the words that accompany music is something that comes later but they do develop their understanding through their ability to identify the story that is being told in a song. Their development can be further enhanced once they reach a certain phase of development by adding their name to a song. This will help them to identify the story and to learn more words.
Music influences a Babies mood
Often, we put your babies and children to bed by singing them songs or playing lullabies that are designed to soothe and relax them. In the same way as music can relax a child, it can also stimulate them. Therefore, music can be used to indicate that is time to play, run around and have fun, which can help them to develop in many other ways such as movement and even socializing if other children are with them.
Music plays a huge part in the lives of adults but it is even more crucial for the development of children at a very young age. Even the simplest of nursery rhymes can help to form the foundations of a child’s development. When you consider that music forms a crucial part of the way in which they learn in playgroup, nursery, and school, it is clear to see why it is so influential.
About the Author
Matt Morrisey is a former teacher who has travelled all over the world teaching children English, from China to the UK Matt is well known. Matt’s parents are teachers and his only brother works for a children’s charity in UK.
Matt currently is a contributor at Star Walk Kids, which is a parenting site and likes to explore kids tech toys, outdoor activities for kids, parenting lifestyle hacks and fun facts for kids that range from national geographic topics to gaming at home. He loves techy drones and can’t wait until he opens his window to allow a drone to enter with an Amazon package. Not long now.
His work has been read by readers all over the world and features on blogs and websites all over the world. Matt recently decided to go back to university to do his PhD where he looks to continue his career.