Latest / Homeschool Insights - Biblical Home Education Inspiration in Under 10 Minutes! / Kids Don’t Learn Words First. They Learn Tones - Andrew Pudewa
Transcript
- speaker-0: believe we should be looking to use music more intentionally. You know, kind of like literature or food. It's something that feeds our mind and feeds our our soul. If I kept saying the same thing, Hohoya, Hohoya, Hohoya, Hohoya, Hohoya, you would pretty soon get the idea that this pair of glasses is a hohoya which is not in any language that I am aware of. But it's interesting because that's where children begin with understanding words is hearing tones in context. So As we sensitize children toward subtle tone differentiation, we're actually improving their ability to discern and understand and ultimately use language. And then if we look, of course, at the refinement, the the very small differentiations in, say, accent or even just within a family, I'm sure you've had the experience of, you know, calling someone And wondering, is that her or is that her daughter? Right. Because they sound so similar. And so children develop this extraordinary refined nuance of language, ⁓ and it's it's all tonal. So one of the things I've been promoting, in terms of language arts development is an idea of focused listening for young children in particular. And, you know, we We kind of have music is just accidental. It just happens in the world. You know, you go into a store, you go into a restaurant, gas station, right, you know, even, you know, something pops up on your screen and you're just hearing all this random accidental and most of it isn't even that good. Right. Or or it's distinctly not good music. Whereas I I believe we should be looking to use music more intentionally. You know, kind of like literature or food. It's something that feeds our mind and feeds our our soul and cultivates our listening skills. one of the things at IEW we say is the four arts of language are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. And if you think about listening and and speaking, well, we have a word in English to hear, but then we also have a word to listen. Right. And they're not quite the same, right? ⁓ hearing happens all the time. Unless you're hearing impaired or deaf, you hear. listen, however, is a little more intentional. Right. Kind of a transitive verb. You have to listen to something. You listen for something. And it's so I've been kind of trying to promote this idea that listening is a skill that can be cultivated. And the best place to start is with focused listening of music. speaker-1: This episode of Homeschool Insights is brought to you by BJU Press Homeschool, CTC Math, and the Explorer Bible for Kids. Visit the show notes to learn more about these excellent resources. And for more encouragement, listen to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast at schoolhouserocked.com.