Singing From the Start

Forget the Mozart Effect! Encouraging young children to sing and make music rather than just listening to a CD is a highly valuable step in their development.

You may find this hard to believe but scientific research confirms that humans are innately musical. We know that babies respond to music in the womb and that a mother's singing can steady the foetal heart rate and reduce kicking. We also know about the impact music making can have on the development of babies and pre-school children, particularly in the areas of learning and social skills. We know that young children can copy the rhymes and songs they hear. But we also know that this ability can disappear if it is not carefully nurtured and developed.

Sing Up wants to enable more and more children to enjoy an unbroken tradition of singing from their earliest years. Teachers, parents and early-years professionals can all play a part in this, and songs can even help ease the big step from nursery to primary school. Hand in hand with Sing Up's campaign to get primary-aged kids singing. Youth Music is continuing its mission to embed music in the lives of children before they reach school.

Singing is recognised as an excellent medium for development across all six areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage and settings increasingly work with creative professionals to enhance their curriculum. As a head teacher or a teacher signed up to Sing Up you may be taking your first steps towards bringing singing into the school day. However, it may not be the children's first experience of singing and some may have had very rich experience of singing and some may have had very rich experiences in early years settings. By finding out what singing happens in local nurseries and learning some popular songs, teachers can help new intakes of children settle in to their new environment as well as continuing their musical development.

Many children will also have learned songs at home, and may even be willing to introduce some that are unfamiliar to the class. As part of the Government's investment in singing. Youth Music is developing a MusicStart pack designed to encourage more parents to sing at home with their young children. Containing an illustrated book, hand-held instruments, a CD and activities, Youth Music intends to link it to Sing Up and ultimately make it available to all children's centres and primary schools with nurseries in England.

As increasing numbers of young children are encouraged to sing in the home and in early-years settings, perhaps a more appropriate strap-line for Sing Up would be 'Help kids keep their voice.' If teachers are able to build from strong pre-school musical foundations, children's innate ability to sing will surely thrive.

MusicStart

The MusicStart pack is being developed by Youth Music as part of Sing Up to help parents bring more singing and music into the heart of family life, preparing toddlers for the singing activities they will encounter later in life. The pack also aims to build musical foundations and help develop communication and numerical skills. For more information on MusicStart and to access further resources and information about early years music, click here.

Music and the under-fives

What the scientists tell us... In March 2006, Youth Music published Turning Their Ears On, a report on research carried out by Northumbria University over three years which explored the positive impact of music making on 400 children under the age of five. The summary report makes interesting reading and can be downloaded free of charge from Youth Music's Early Years website.

Take Note

In 1999, Youth Music was the first organisation to commit resources to supporting music making for young children. Since then support for children's first encounters with education through excellent child-care has gone up the education agenda. Creative music making plays a key role.

Youth Music

• Working with experts in the field, Youth Music champions the benefits of music for the under-fives, recommending a rich diet of singing, movement and simple instruments at home and in local groups.
• Youth Music has been a major force in advocating the importance of music for the under-fives since its inception in 1998. By 2010, Youth Music will have invested more than £7 million in resource materials, research and funding programme designed to help improve the lives of very young children and their parents or carers through active music making. Together with singing, early years is one of its five priorities.
• www.youthmusic.org.uk

Tuning in to Children

• Early-years music making comes with a unique set of challenges. A key element of all Youth Music's work is a commitment to training and the charity has recently launched a new handbook, Tuning into Children, which will offer a set of guiding principles for early-years practioners and music specialists who want to collaborate on devising new programmes of activity or enhance their existing music practice.
• Tuning in to Children offers a frame work for planning and implementing a programme of training and CPD to deepen musicians' and early-years practioners' understanding of young children and their music making.

Words: Helen Price, Sing Up