Start with their Strengths
Unlock your child’s creativity—and confidence!—by recognizing his learning style.

By Michael Hemsworth

I recently started working with a group of three year olds learning about jazz. Yes, jazz. I came into the class sure that every child could be successful. Instantly you could see each child’s unique personality. Peter was still adjusting to being away from Mom and didn't want anything to do with me. Sammy didn't want to sit. Chris wanted to do everything fast. Miles didn't like to sing. Sydney loved to sing. Did all these kids have (musical) potential? Absolutely.

Peter needed the safety of a relationship before he was ready to learn. Once he had heard the same opening song for a few weeks, knew what to expect, and held hands with Mr. Michael once or twice during the marching parade, he started to thrive and became very expressive, but without that personal connection to his teacher, Peter would never have shown what he could do.

Sammy, on the other hand, had all the confidence he needed. What he thrived on was language. He became the first child to identify what he was hearing with words. "That sounds high," he would tell me.

"What is the tempo of this song?" I would ask the class.

"Allegro," Sammy would proudly blurt. When we did music and color associations, he was happy to name the colors he imagined with each song. Allowing Sammy to be more verbal helped him learn.

Sydney also liked to be verbal. Or maybe just loud. She, however, was not as interested in what I was asking as she was in sharing her own story (often in the middle of class). "I saw that instrument on TV… That makes me feel happy—like when I got a princess lunch box..." And on and on…but this information was not a distraction. Sydney was processing new information by connecting it to her other experiences, and once the connection was made, she felt greater mastery of the new concepts. Sydney also loved to sing. She came alive when it was her turn to sing with Ella the Elephant (affectionately named after Ella Fitzgerald).

Miles, on the other hand, did not want to sing at all. He liked music, but, Miles was much more kinetic than verbal. He understood and enjoyed music most when he had a rhythm instrument in his hands. Once he could tap, bang, or shake something, he was very engaged in learning.

Chris also needed his sense of rhythm stimulated. The boy who wanted every activity to go fast, Chris was slower to recognize if things sounded high or low. He astounded me, however, when it was his day to be the cymbal player as we sang "Wheels on the Bus." He heard the fast and slow tempos and quickly organized his playing into patterns that just made sense to him. We just needed to tune into the beats he already had inside.

Kinetic, verbal, auditory, relational… Children absorb new skills and information in a variety of ways. Sometimes, when things just "aren't getting in," it’s only because they’re being sent through the wrong channel. One child might learn everything they need just from a song while another won’t learn a thing until his hands get active.

You already know that your child is unique. Remember that you can use that uniqueness to jump-start their education in music, in reading, or in life. Building upon a child's innate skills builds their confidence and self-esteem and teaches them how to face challenges and solve problems by drawing on their strengths, instead of focusing on their weaknesses. Let’s teach our children to look past what they can't do (yet) and find a way to say, "I can!"

Michael Hemsworth graduated from UC Davis with a music degree at age 18. He enjoys passing his love of music on to his children and his students at Newsongs School of Music in Elk Grove. He can be reached at newsongssom@yahoo.com.