The benefits of singing are tied to other benefits from related musical skills. A key part of our role is to create opportunities for children to develop their music and movement skills. As we consider skills and research findings, benefits will emerge that are not just musical, but also pro-social, emotional, cognitive, language and cultural.

Two questions I’m often asked about skills

1. What skills should I consider when working with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers?

2. What significant findings have emerged from research studies on the development and benefits of the musical skill of singing?

What skills should I consider when working with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers?

In my practice, I have refined a list of skills I would like to see develop in my children to attain the most benefits. I use the word SIMPLE as a mnemonic to remind me of the five musical skills that belong in a balanced program of musical experiences for babies and children age 0-6.

I based it on the word ‘simple’, even though many adults find music to be anything but simple, usually because they missed some crucial learning opportunities in their childhood! It also reminds me to lead with singing, a crucial and entirely portable skill that requires no equipment or technologies.

S                      Singing (and sounding)

I                       Improvising

M                     Moving (and Dancing)

P                      Playing (instruments and sound-makers)

L                      Listening

E                      Enjoying (not a skill, a mood, but essential, and it fills out the word.)

What significant findings have emerged from research studies on the development of the musical skill of singing?

I’ve selected three studies that serve as evidence supporting the idea that our informal music activities are of great benefit the children in our sessions. Having this evidence boosts our confidence, and we can also share it with our families and colleagues.

#1 SINGING PRESCHOOLERS: Informal musical experiences

The first study I want to share is about training preschoolers to gain the benefits of singing and a variety of other musical skills, conducted by Putkinen et al. 2019 in Helsinki, Finland. The publicly funded ‘Musical Playschool’ is a popular pastime for young Finnish children.

Summary of findings

In summary, their results indicate that

(1) Children who regularly attend Musical Playschool for three or more years demonstrate more mature auditory skills than those with shorter attendance.

(2) The tested neural processing skills involved the discrimination of melody, rhythm, timbre, and tuning which take years of age-appropriate group activities to develop.

(3) It requires skilled music educators to facilitate the activities before the children can demonstrate the benefits of their complex sound processing.

In their words:

‘We investigated whether the amount of musical group activities is reflected in the maturation of neural sound discrimination from toddler to preschool-age.’

‘Musical Playschool’ skill development

The researchers describe a variety of skills that are developed in musical playschool:

• singing
• dancing
• playing percussive instruments
• moving to music
• listening to instruments
• informally playing band instruments

This depicts typical sessions for three age ranges:

“The playschool sessions consisted of joined musical activities such as singing and dancing with the guidance of a trained teacher in groups of 6–10 children. During a typical session for the 2–3-year-olds, the teacher sang and played an acoustic guitar and encouraged the children to sing, play percussive instruments or move along with the music. At this age, the children were accompanied by a guardian who also participated in the activities.

At ages 4–5 to 6–7, the children attended the playschool without a guardian and the activities included familiarization with musical concepts like tempo, melody and dynamics through musical play. At this age-range, the children were introduced to ‘band’ instruments such as the guitar and drums.

The aim of these activities was not formal training on these instruments but rather playful familiarization with their timbres and the basic principles of how they are played (e.g. by strumming the guitar strings). The playschool sessions lasted for 45 minutes and were held on a weekly basis … approximately 30 times/year.” (p. 3)

How informal music activities easily enhance listening skills

“In sum, the main finding of the current study was that neural processing of melody, rhythm, timbre and tuning matured faster in children who attended a musical playschool throughout their early childhood compared to children with less musical experience.

… In conclusion, the current results indicate that age-appropriate musical group activities benefit the maturation of complex sound processing in early childhood. These results add to the evidence that informal musical experience facilitates auditory skill development.’ (p.8)

#2 SINGING TODDLERS: Mothers as Singing Mentors

The second reference is to a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Singing (2015). It specifically addresses how babies and toddlers develop their musical singing skills, mentored by their mothers and others, as written by Sandra Trehub (Canada) and Helga Rut Gudmundsdottir (Iceland).

Summary of investigations

In summary, their investigations of recent studies indicate that

(1) There are four beneficial reasons why mothers sing to babies and toddlers: to calm them, to help them to sleep, to play with them, and to reduce their stress.

(2) Maternal singing is used to convey feelings and intentions, often face-to-face. This benefits wellbeing and also communication.

(3) Babies and toddlers love to mimic their mothers, which encourages the mothers to coax even more expressive singing from their children.

(4) Educators can maintain and enhance toddlers’ singing by focusing on relationship-building and shared intentions rather than skill-building.

In their words:

‘Mothers act as singing mentors even though their mentoring is initially intuitive versus deliberate, emphasizing pleasure/comfort over precision.’

Key ideas

Many people describe their singing as inaccurate, but most can sing in tune and in time. If the essence of the singing is for enjoyment and connection, precision isn’t a concern, as the children gain from the expressiveness. Maternal mentoring focuses more on beneficial caregiving than on egoistic, technically perfect singing. ‘Mothers model singing as pleasure, comfort, shared feelings, and common purpose’. (p.10) Another benefit is that singing plays a crucial role in introducing the mother’s culture.

‘During the first year, their singing exerts its most noticeable effects on infant attention and affect while also enhancing mother-infant bonds. In the second year, the fruits of maternal mentoring become evident in toddlers’ singing.’ (p. 2)

‘For toddlers, singing is associated with joy, comfort and security.’ (p. 10)

Implications for music educators

Just like mothers and others, music practitioners can take advantage of the benefits of singing:

• to soothe,
• to amuse and give pleasure
• to sing together
• to teach the toddler songs to sing alone and improvise
• to learn their own culture
• to learn about other cultures

#3 SINGING TO BABIES: Active music classes in infancy enhance musical, communicative and social development

The third study I’d like to share is about training babies through singing and a range of musical skills, conducted by David Gerry, Andrea Unrau, and Laurel Trainor in 2012 in Ontario, Canada.

Summary of results

Their results suggest that :

(1) Infants can engage in meaningful musical training when appropriate pedagogical approaches are employed.

(2) Active musical participation during infancy enhances culture-specific musical acquisition.

(3) Active musical participation during infancy positively impacts social and communication skill development. (p.398)

In their words

‘6 months of active participatory musical experience beginning at 6 months of age accelerates acquisition of culture-specific knowledge of Western tonality in comparison to a similar amount of passive exposure to music.’

Active musical experiences

The active musical experiences were Suzuki-type classes ‘in which teachers work with parents and infants using a curriculum that emphasizes movement, singing, playing percussion instruments, and building a repertoire of lullabies and action songs.’

The passive exposure to music also happened in groups but consisted only of listening to a range of synthesiser renditions of popular classical music while roaming amongst five play-stations including art, balls, books and maths equipment.

They chose a CD to take home each week. ‘The curriculum did not include movement, a repertoire of memorized songs and action games, paying attention, or active parental involvement in music-making.’ (p. 400)

Benefits — musical and non-musical

The researchers state that: ‘The present findings indicate that enriched active musical experience can accelerate acquisition of knowledge about Western musical tonality in infancy.’ (p. 404)

‘Furthermore, infants assigned to the active musical experience showed superior development of prelinguistic communicative gestures and social behaviour compared to infants assigned to the passive musical experience.’ (p. 399)

I have highlighted some of the key findings from these three references. If you have time, I encourage you to read the full papers to gain a deeper understanding of the significance of our practices, as young children enjoy the benefits of singing and other musical skills.