Literacy and Music in Early Childhood

Michelle M Tomlinson

doi:10.1177/2158244013502498

Abstract

This review of literature examines relevant research that supports new ways of viewing children as active transmitters of culture in situated learning contexts, where case studies explore children’s redesign of semiotic modes of music and verbal linguistics. Some recent research discussed in this article supports the premise that cognitive abilities of children in early learning settings may be transformed through embodied ways of representing prior knowledge. Young children have been observed enriching prior knowledge during interactions in music invention, using the gestural mode to interpret rhythmic and melodic motifs, structure and phrasing through movement to music, or extending these elements of music (audio mode) in invented song or instrumental play. In engaging literacy tasks, they co-construct texts by drawing on semiotic resources of visual symbols and spatial design elements in written linguistic modes. This cognitive structuring is also revealed in the underlying patterns found in their embodied music invention. How knowledge is represented is crucial to children’s apprehension of knowledge through co-construction. It enables their selection of media and mode for redesign, to promote their understanding of concepts and facilitate problem solving. Multimodal redesign in young children’s music and verbal linguistics is explored as a rich source for communicating meaning and developing higher thinking.

Highlights

Children’s experiences and skills in music and literacy text redesign are brought to early learning settings, and merit further investigation as to how children learn through semiotics, the semiotics of music (West, 2009)
Selecting elements of music and featuring some, children make decisions based on movement vocabulary and play potentials of instruments such as Orff xylophones to create accumulative sequences of sound (Young, 2003). They are agentive in redesigning or reordering elements of music, knowing when to focus on phrasing, dynamics, melody, or rhythm, similar to the linguistic concept of turn taking (Tomlinson, 2012)
Children’s dispositional and creative approaches to learning, their transformation of prior knowledge, and an enriched conceptual understanding should emerge through study of a variety of multimodal redesigns in music invention and literacy in early learning settings

Summary

Introduction

Children’s experiences and skills in music and literacy text redesign are brought to early learning settings, and merit further investigation as to how children learn through semiotics (signifiers, or their ways of representing thought), the semiotics of music (West, 2009). Children’s dispositional and creative approaches to learning, their transformation of prior knowledge, and an enriched conceptual understanding should emerge through study of a variety of multimodal redesigns in music invention and literacy in early learning settings.

Results

Conclusion