Associate Professor Kate Williams designed a preschool program, called RAMSR, focussing exclusively on rhythm and movement activities linked to pathways in the brain to support attentional and emotional development.
“Think heads, shoulders, knees and toes but do the actions backwards while you sing forwards. It tricks the brain into gear,” Williams said.
The Queensland study, involving 113 children from lower socioeconomic communities, measured the effectiveness of the program to boost self-regulation skills.
“Being able to control your own emotions, cognition and behaviors is an important predictor of school readiness and early school achievement,” Williams said.
“The aim is for regular sessions to be introduced into daily activities of young children to help support their attentional and emotional regulation skills, inhibition and working memory. We want all early childhood teachers to feel confident to run these fun and important activities.”
The findings have been published today in the international peer-reviewed Psychology of Music.
Rhythm and Movement
The study is a unique investigation about preschool children and the application of a rhythm and movement program to address socioeconomic-related school readiness and achievement gaps.
Williams said differences in neurological processes can produce educational inequalities for young children who experience disadvantage. It’s been identified by UNICEF as an international priority.
The study recognizes what Williams describes as the ‘musician advantage’ – enhanced neural plasticity and executive functioning – particularly among children given formal musical instruction.
“The children who have music lessons from a young age are often from families who can afford them,” she said. “The problem is that the children who most need the musician advantage miss out because it isn’t affordable for all families to access highly quality music programs”.
She said the benefits of early shared book reading between parents and children have long been established.
Another recent Australian study, led by Williams, was the first to show that early shared music activities in the home also contribute to positive development.
The preschool program involved group sessions for 30 minutes twice a week across eight weeks, with stages becoming more challenging to stimulate change and development in self-regulation skills.
StepUp Summary
Similarly, the StepUp approach to learning combines movement, rhythm, and repetition with an early learning curriculum. StepUp improves coordination of cognitive and motor skills in an educational environment that encourages self-evaluation and trial and error problem solving. As children progress through the program levels, they develop fluency in reading decoding, handwriting, and math fact retrieval.
StepUp's cloud-based programs enrich any PreK - Grade 2 curriculum and can be used as an intervention for struggling learners. Try it free for 30 days!
Article reposted with permission from Queensland University of Technology.