The Effect of Group Vocal Training on the Singing Ability of Nursery School Children

Abstract

SHOULD SINGING SKILL development be emphasized as soon as the young child enters school? A few research studies have found vocal training to be extremely beneficial during the preschool years. Jersild and Bienstock discovered that the three-yearold children they taught in pairs improved greatly in tuneful singing abilitysl Some of their subjects were tested again after two years and the same investigators reported that the children wvho had received earlier vocal training were superior singers when compared to other children of the same age.2 Updegraff, Heileger and Learned trained threefourand five-year-old children individually and obtained comparable results.3 VVhy have music educators paid so little attention to the above results? The findings of these studies may have been generally ignored because the investigators attempted to train only one or two children at one time. Updegraff, Heileger and Learned even suggest that the increased interest displayed by their trained subjects was due to individual attention during training. If