- Keeping a Musical Beat Is Linked
to Academic Skills
-
- In a 1994 feature in the Los Angeles Times, writer Maia
Davis
- describes a motor-skills class at an elementary school in
Ventura,
- California:
-
- With all eyes trained on their teacher, the group of
second-graders
- at Ventura's Mound School tried to follow her every move as
they
- clapped their hands, slapped their thighs, and kicked their
heels to
- the tune of bluegrass music.
-
- But some children were struggling: Their hands hit their left
knees
- when they should have gone to the right. Their legs flew up
into
- kicks at the moment that they should have hit the floor.
-
- "It's kind of hard to get the message down to your legs as
fast as
- the music," 7-year-old Kerianne Hewitt said.
-
- The elementary school launched the (motor-skills) class four
years
- ago based on research showing that the ability to respond
- physically to a musical beat is closely linked to children's
skills in
- reading, writing and concentration.
-
- "We have noticed (the class) helps kids concentrate and hold
their
- attention span longer. We have seen kids who have
difficulty
- reading and writing improve because they are able to organize
their
- thoughts better," said Principal Beverly McCaslin.
-
- Teacher Joanne Bowie leads the motor-skills instruction
every
- Friday for each of the school's first through fifth-grade
classes.
-
- During some classes, the students clap, march, or jump rope.
In
- others, they recite poems to music. "I try to present it in a
variety
- of ways just to keep the interest up," Bowie said.
-
- But the goal in all the class activities is to help children
learn to
- keep a steady one-two beat with the music.
-
- Bowie bases her instruction mainly on workshops she has
taken
- from Phyllis S. Weikart, a retired physical education
professor
- from the University of Michigan.
-
- A nationally recognized expert in motor-skills development
for
- children, Weikart maintains that children should begin to
develop
- an innate sense of timing when they are infants.
-
- When care-givers pat or stroke babies to the tune of a
lullaby, for
- example, they are helping the children make a connection
between
- what they hear and what they do, Weikart said in an
interview
- from her Michigan home.
-
- That "hearing-feeling connection," as Weikart calls it, is
what
- allows children to listen to something that is being said or
watch
- something that is being done and follow the directions.
'What
- you're linking is action, thought and language,' she
said.
-
- And having a sense of inner timing allows children to speak
or
- read in whole sentences instead of just one word at a
time.
-
- But studies show the number of children with the ability to
keep a
- steady beat has declined in recent years, from a range of 80%
to
- 90% to about 10%, Weikart said.
-
- "I feel it's probably the most fundamental of all the problems
we
- face in education today," she said.
-
- (Weikart) believes that the fault lies partly with adults
who
- mistakenly believe hat children respond better to the rhythm
of
- words or syllables than to a steady beat. Many adults today,
for
- example, clap the hand game "Patty Cake" with children to
the
- rhythm of the words' syllables rather than to a steady one-two
beat.
-
- "What's happening today is that the children are
receiving
- movement stimulation in rhythm rather than in beat," she
said.
-
- At Mound, Bowie said she finds at the beginning of each year
that
- only about one-third of the students can independently keep
a
- steady beat. By the end of the year, the number climbs to
two-
- thirds.
-
- And the children said they have become more confident about
their
- abilities to move to music.
-
- "I was just really shy (at first)," 8-year-old Jordan Frye
said. "It's
- just really neat to see that you can dance."
-
- Source: http://www.tcams.org/davis.htm
-
-
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