Modeling the Love of Music: Parents and Scaffolding Learning!

Carolyn 3:22 PM

PARENTS & SCAFFOLDING LEARNING

Do you know who your child's first and most important teachers are?

Photo from the artists at Dollar Photo Club.

Parents, grandparents and primary caregivers!

Photo from the artists at Dollar Photo Club

The child pictured here is copying the modeling provided by the adult in this fun music activity of playing maracas. The happy child is being held in the adult's arms. This loving support happens to be a foundation of the scaffold of learning that this child is experiencing.

Photo from the artists at Dollar Photo Club

"Modeling" to a child how to do something has always been a teaching tool and parents often do this spontaneously. These "teachable moments" occur daily in the lives of families with young children. This is often referred to as part of the process of "educational scaffolding".

Photo from the artists at Dollar Photo Club

Here's a definition of scaffolding learning:

"Instructional Scaffolding"

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Instructional scaffolding is a learning process designed to promote a deeper learning. Scaffolding is the support

given during the learning process which is tailored to the needs of the student with the intention of helping the student

achieve his/her learning goals (Sawyer, 2006).

Instructional scaffolding is the provision of sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being

first introduced to students. These supports may include the following.

Use of instructional scaffolding in various contexts:

Modeling a task
Giving advice
Providing coaching

These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own

cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge.

From Kindermusik International, the following is an outline of the musical profile of preschoolers. By having fun with these activities together, families can help children develop important skills.

Developing beat awareness
Matching beat to external sound source
Becoming increasingly successful with the rhythm and tone of songs
Beginning to sing accurately
Differentiating between the singing and speaking voice
Beginning to understand musical concepts of:

Loud/Quiet
High/Low
Long/Short
Fast/Slow

Photo by Jeri-Jo Idarius (from Carolyn's Magical Movement Company archive)

Great games can be created by singing or chanting a familiar song with a change of dynamics each time. Helping the child to develop these skills at his/her own pace is something parents can do while "modeling" and just plain having fun.

Photo by Jeri-Jo Idarius Photography (Carolyn's Archives)

Photo by Jeri-Jo Idarius (from Carolyn's Magical Movement Archive)

Here you can see a mom and daughter making a sock puppet together in summer music camp at the Muse in Willits, CA. Later, the mother/daughter puppets can "sing" and "play games" together. A fun way to scaffold learning!