The Role of Culture and Music in Early Childhood Education

This essay provides an overview of early childhood development, highlighting the significance of cultural influences and educational approaches. It emphasizes that children, from the age of three, undergo critical developmental stages influenced by their families and communities. The essay discusses how cultural values, including language, customs, and beliefs, shape a child's lifestyle and approach to life. It further explores the benefits of exposing children to diverse cultures and languages, fostering confidence and life skills. The role of early childhood education, especially the use of music, is also examined, emphasizing its impact on language acquisition, social-emotional skills, and cognitive development. The essay advocates for the integration of music in both school and home environments to enhance learning and strengthen family bonds, promoting a safe and enriching environment for children’s growth. The importance of songs, their universality, and their effectiveness in teaching are also discussed.

Running head: EARLY CHILDHOOD 1
Early childhood
Name
Institution

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Introduction
Early childhood is a human development stage which a child is aged three years. At this stage
children become more aware of their physical stages of growth children experience from age
three onwards. Except when a child has a disability of some kind, all children adapt to different
stages of development at a closer pace if not the same. However different cultures have unique
ways in which children are nurtured morally, emotionally, and intellectually. Parents are the first
and most important teachers to their children. From a young age the children learn their
language, environment, their culture and the world around them from the parent and close family
members. Family culture is the first thing that a child learns from an early age and it involves
various activities that the family engages in different occasions. Different families and cultures
have different ways in which they express themselves around the world. Family cultures helps in
developing a child’s way of life approach which as a result becomes a lifestyle which they can be
identified with even into adulthood. Cultural values include how people express themselves in
tangibles ways such dressing, language, music, food, furniture, and games. The culture also
includes customs that the family engages in and values that the family uses to express
themselves. These customs may include individual’s roles in the family, special days for
celebrations and holidays, ways of communication and how people care. The values include
beliefs or the reasons for doing various things such as attitude towards time and money,
definition of achievement, and understanding the nature of the world that we live.
Children imitate what their parents and the community does and therefore some habits do not
require serious one on one training but just observation. Actions such as greetings are mostly
imitated and a child only needs to understand the different ways of greeting different people
according to age or other relevant issues such as religion or socioeconomic status.

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The benefits of exploring diverse cultures and languages in childhood are to help the child
fully understand the diversity in people’s activities and lifestyle around the world. The child’s
needs to understand that people within the community or a certain geographical area, may share
the same resources but have diversity in culture. A good example is where you find a region
where there are different religions such as Christians and Muslins. These categories of people
worship on different ways, dress differently but the children attend the same schools and buy
goods from the same shopping center. They also benefit from the same government funds such
as infrastructure and healthcare. Exploring diverse cultures and languages in early childhood
helps the child to develop confidence and life skills required during their development. The child
is able to identify themselves with a certain lifestyles, community or region. Children also
develop characters which they can be identified with even with less communication. A person
from a different culture is able to identify another because of the presentation they have based on
culture. Culture also promotes creativity among the individuals in the community. Children learn
new games, and languages from those of different culture.
Early childhood education is the foundation of a child’s journey in academics. Every other
education level depends on the success of early childhood education because that is the level
which the child is introduced to quality knowledge. Children adapt to education in diverse
individual ways which need to be monitored, improved, and nurtured to create a strong
foundation. Young children learn quickly through activities and songs. Songs are easy to master
as they are sang repeatedly and therefore making the lessons more interesting and easy to
understand. In early childhood education teachers use songs to create interest in the lesson that
they want the children to be engaged in. The importance of the songs in early childhood

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education is that they are universal and hence they can be used by different cultures. Songs are
also used to express joyful or sad moments, they are also used during celebration events such
birthdays or government ceremonies. Exposure to music in childhood education helps the child
to speak more clearly and to develop a larger vocabulary. Children are also able to strengthen
their social and emotional skills because the songs also include expression terminologies and
actions that enable the child to bring out their real self.
Music help in developing motor skills in children as it is seen that when they are engaged in
music they are able to connect the body with the brain. Music also helps in mental organization
for the children. Through singing they learn how to differentiate tones of music and hence being
able to memorize the music. Children also learn how to develop musical skills such as clapping
to the beating and singing to the tune. Learning using music should be practiced both at school
and at home to help develop the actual growth in skills. Singing involves a lot of creativity and
through it children can identify their talents and personalities. With proper guidance they can
develop goals that will enable them to identify and grow their skills. Music also helps in
developing stronger bonds between the children and the parents. Music makes it easy to mix
learning with play which makes lessons very interesting and children look forward to attending
the learning sessions. Learning music together creates a strong bond between the parent and the
child. That way the parent and the child get to have more time of being together and are able to
understand each other’s personality through songs. Parents and the teachers should ensure that
the children are in a safe music environment. Music presented to children should have an
appropriate language and actions that a parent should not be embarrassed while using the music
language and terms to sing.

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Children can also be taught to sing in other languages where they will be able to learn new
languages. Words may also mean the same in different language and hence the children will be
able to learn the diversity of language.

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