It’s no secret that young children learn better through playing.
In the early years of piano lessons, students learn a lot of their musical skills through movement. This helps young students understand abstract ideas like rhythm and pitch in a non-threatening, fun way!
Music through movement improves motor skills through clapping, dancing, snapping their fingers, singing, or marching in place.
It helps if your child has an interest in music, but even if they do not visibly show it by singing or dancing often, most children enjoy find that they enjoy playing after even the first lesson!
It is important that you have the time to set aside time in each day to practice with your child to offer encouragement and a guiding hand.
It is up to you as a parent to make practicing part of your daily schedule. Within a few months, most young students realize that while it takes work to learn to play music, it has very satisfying results.
Most young children are not as motivated as older children to do the correct kind of practice: part of the music lesson process at young ages is to help develop attention to detail & attention span for practice, as well as patience with themselves as the learning process is new to them.
Some children can read music in as little as one week, and for others it takes a year or two. It depends on the child, and you should allow them to learn at their own pace. I introduce music to each student in a gentle, but encouraging manner, where each student is challenged but not to the point of discouragement.
For most pre-school aged children, I start with the Bastien Series, and quickly move on to Piano Adventures by Faber and Faber. I am familiar with Alfred, John Thompson and Suzuki methods as well.
In addition to their lesson book; I use my composition knowledge to write exercises on the spot for students, as well as songs they might be interested in learning.
Yes! I recently started using JoyTunes’ Piano Maestro with all students. I have an iPad that I bring with me to every lesson – and if you have an iPad, you will also have access to this app to practice with when I’m not there!