Why is learning through music effective?

Music can play an important role in language and literacy development. It is an engaging way to strengthen children’s ability to differentiate and produce the sounds that are the building blocks of language (phonological awareness).

Music stimulates and unifies cognitive function and touches three of the four modalities the brain uses to process information.

• Auditory
• Kinesthetic/tactile (movement)
• Tactual (elicits emotion)

When children are given printed song lyrics, then music also taps the visual modality. This is one reason songs, poems, rhymes and raps are effective vehicles for learning.

Smarty Pants Press Nursery Rhyme Shared Reading Series touches all four of these modalities used by learners to process information. And, by using real music, nursery rhymes come to life through rap and jazz melodies.

While music stimulates the brain on many levels and accelerates learning, it also makes teaching and learning fun.