Without exception, we all want the very best for our children.
As parents, we want to see them live a successful, happy, and fulfilled life. And it’s with this in mind that we see so many parents getting their children involved in a multitude of activities to give them the edge and make sure that they have all the skills they need to succeed in our frenzied world.
Have you considered how music can benefit your child?
The Roseway Waldorf curriculum introduces music at an early age – and for good reason. Besides the sheer joy and excitement that it brings to young children, there are a plethora of studies which point to early music learning as a serious brain boost.
Language skills, in particular, are positively impacted by early music experiences.
A fascinating study breaks down the science of this premise and notes, “…musicians learn and repeatedly practice the association of motor actions with specific sound and visual patterns (musical notation) while receiving continuous multisensory feedback. This association learning can strengthen connections between auditory and motor regions (e.g., arcuate fasciculus) while activating multimodal integration regions.”
The training of the brain in this way enhances other behavioural and cognitive functions outside of the musical abilities; developing a plasticity of the neural network.
Just an hour a week of music – especially for children under the age of seven – is enough to see significant benefits to the brain.
Liisa Henriksson-Macaulay, author of The Music Miracle: The Scientific Secret to Unlocking Your Child’s Full Potential, writes, “When children start studying music before the age of seven, they develop bigger vocabularies, a better sense of grammar and a higher verbal IQ.” This applies both to their own language, as well as their ability to learn foreign languages, and is a gift that lasts well past childhood into adulthood.
Liisa further goes on to point out that our children learn the most during free play and discovering the word around them for themselves. So a combination of gentle, enjoyable music lessons combined with a lot of unstructured play is a wonderful recipe for our children’s growing minds.
If you would like to know more about the Waldorf way, we would love to assist you. Please contact us with any questions.
- Embracing Art in a Waldorf School - 13/04/2017
- Unfolding Creative Concepts in Art and Science - 12/04/2017
- Understanding Waldorf – Why Choose A Steiner School? - 20/03/2017
