Teaching music to children under the age of five comes with specific challenges. Preschool learners can’t read most of the words in typical piano lesson books. Their brains are in a unique stage of learning that requires a lot of repetition and appeals to all the senses.
But preschoolers are also like sponges. And children don’t stay in this unique stage of learning very long. Since music is proven to impact cognitive development in a lot of positive ways, it stands to reason that the earlier we start teaching music to children, either private music lessons or group music classes, the greater the impact of that learning will be, especially if music becomes a lifelong hobby or even a career for the learner.
Here are ten tips to help tackle the challenges that come with teaching music to preschoolers. Remember that every learner is different.
- Keep it moving. Spend 5 minutes tops on an activity and move on to another activity. Check out this list of preschool music activities for ideas.
- Use pre-reading methods and supplemental books from multiple publishers at the same time to slow down the pace. You can keep things moving by switching from book to book. Examples of pre-reading book series: Music for Little Mozarts, Faber’s My First Piano Adventures.
- Review, review, review! Early pre-readers and some older learners with disabilities benefit from slower pacing. Try playing through the last 10 songs your student learned every week as a warm-up. This builds the student’s confidence before tackling the newest song.
- Give small children performance opportunities like everyone else! A performance piece doesn’t have to be fancy; just polished! If the song is “Two Blackbirds” from the beginning of Faber primer, fine! If applicable/available, practice on the lesson room piano, then also practice on the recital piano, and practice bowing for the audience.
- Incorporate general preschool music activities that reinforce concepts while reducing the amount of multitasking the piano books require (e.g., claves or even coffee can drums to practice rhythm; “food rhythm charts” are also a fun way to introduce or supplement rhythm concepts).
- Use Kodaly rhythm syllables (ta, ti-ti).
- Let the child steer a little. Children are very imaginative and love to learn. One way I do this while still maintaining authority over the lesson is to “reward” the child with their desired activity. Example: if the child sees the drum set in the corner of my lesson room and wants to play it, promise the child they can play the drums for one minute at the end of the lesson or after they achieve a goal.
- Use visual and audio aids like YouTube videos and the audio tracks that come with all the Music for Little Mozarts books. Children love variety!
- Introduce some elements of routine into your lesson. The 10-song review at the start of the lesson is one example of this, but another idea is to start every lesson with a “hello” song and end every lesson with a “goodbye” song. Very young learners gain from a lot of repetition mixed with gradual introduction of new concepts, and familiarity also fosters confidence.
- Have fun! If you have fun, they’ll have fun.
What do you think of these tips? Do you have more teaching tips to share, or preschool music activities to add to the list? Post them in the comments section or on our social media pages. We’d love to hear from you!
