As piano teachers, we wear many hats. School teachers often teach only one age group, or a few age groups. Piano teachers are usually expected to be able to teach from age 5 to 95! But as we all know, teaching a 5-year-old is much different from teaching a 15-year-old, or a 55-year-old. 🙂
In recently thinking about this challenge of being able to effectively teach various age levels and maturities, I decided to make a list of some of the things I’ve learned over the past few years about teaching young ages — I’m thinking, ages 6 and under. I learned some of these things from an Early Childhood Music course I took during grad school and various piano pedagogy courses — but I learned many of these things purely from experience. Here goes:
- Don’t ask questions that you don’t really want answers to. Examples: “Did you like that?” or “Do you want to try it on your own now?” Sometimes if given the option to opt out of something, children will say “no” simply because you’ve given them a choice. 🙂 It’s better to make statements.
- Give them time to think. When you ask a question, wait for them to process and compose a response. Sometimes we ask questions and then blow right on without getting an answer. Young children need this think time. If you don’t really want to wait for an answer, then don’t ask the question in the first place. Continue reading “9 Tips for Teaching Piano To Young Ages”
With my Piano Readiness Class, we’ve been learning about staff notation. Last week, each student composed a mini-composition on the piano and then we together notated the piece. We used colorful markers to label the notes (A, B, C, etc) and also wrote in finger numbers, so they can continue playing their compositions at home. They loved the idea of being composers!
With my Piano Readiness Class, we’ve been learning about the instruments and the instrument families. To do this, I decided to create a workbook for my students to be able to take notes about the instruments and color a picture of each one.
