What is Multisensory Teaching in Music?
Estimated reading time 4 minutes
Table of Contents
What is Multisensory Teaching in Music?
Multisensory means just what it sounds like, using the visual, aural, tactile, and kinesthetic senses to teach musical concepts. I have developed my own special brand of multisensory teaching strategies that I have geared for use in music, some of which were published in the Dyslexic Reader.
By tapping into the different senses, it creates a more concrete and more complete learning experience. You can also find many useful tips in Music and Dyslexia: Opening New Doors. Margaret Hubicki’s chapter, “A Multisensory Approach to the Teaching of Musical Notation” talks about color-coding music.
It is Not Limited Only to Students with Learning Disabilities and Special Needs.
As I mentioned in the What is LD & ADD? page, both the strengths and struggles of learning disabilities stem from the student being a visual thinker.
This is why multisensory teaching in music works so well with LD students. However, almost all students under the age of eleven are going to have a strong tendency to learn better through concrete examples.
Why is Multisensory Teaching in Music so Effective for Children?
One childhood development model, proposed by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, has children making cognitive shifts around ages two, seven, and eleven. Dennis Coon summarizes the four stages.
The Sensorimotor Stage (0-2)
“In the first two years of life, a child’s intellectual development is largely nonverbal. The child is mainly concerned with learning to coordinate purposeful movements with information from the senses…
“Active play with a child is most effective at this stage. Encourage explorations in touching, smelling, and manipulating objects…
The Preoperational Stage (2-7)
“During the preoperational period the child is developing an ability to think symbolically and use language. But the child’s thinking is still very intuitive…
“Although children are beginning to talk to themselves and act out solutions to problems, touching and seeing things will continue to be more useful than verbal explanations. Concrete examples will also have more meaning than generalizations. The child should be encouraged to classify things in different ways…
The Concrete Operational Stage (7-11)
“During the concrete operational stage a child’s thought begins to include concepts of time, space, and number. Categories and principles are used, and the child can think logically about concrete objects and situations.
“Another important development at this time is the ability to reverse thoughts and operations… Reversibility of thought allows a child in the concrete operations stage to recognize that if 4 * 2 = 8, then 2 * 4 does, too. Younger children must memorize each relationship separately…
“Children in this stage are beginning to use generalizations, but they still require specific examples [i.e., concrete examples] to grasp many ideas. Expect a degree of inconsistency in the child’s ability to apply concepts of time, space, quantity, and volume to new situations…
The Formal Operational Stage (11 and Up)
“Sometime after about the age of 11, the child begins to break away from concrete objects and specific examples…
“The stage of formal operations represents attainment of full adult intellectual ability… From this point on, improvements in intellectual ability are based on the accumulation of knowledge, experience, and wisdom, rather than on an enlargement of basic thinking capacity…
“At this point it becomes more realistic to explain things verbally or symbolically to a child. Helping the child master general rules and principles now becomes productive. Encourage the child to create hypothesis and to imagine how things ‘could be’ ” (Coon 376 – 378, 380).
Multisensory Teaching in Music Links into the Young Student's Concrete Learning Style
As children gets older, they can handle more and more abstract concepts. After age six or seven, children will be able to handle some abstract reasoning. Nevertheless, they will still benefit from concrete teaching.
Around eleven or twelve years old the last cognitive shift will take place, at this point children will be thinking like adults. However, they will not have the experience of an adult. (It is my theory that students with learning disabilities make the cognitive shifts at a later age than traditional learners.)
This is why multisensory teaching in music works so well with younger students, because it links into their concrete style of learning.
Video: How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain
Almost Two-Thirds of Children Will Have a Preference for Multisensory Teaching
Dr. Linda K. Silverman, who works with gifted students, found that over 63% of students will have at least some preference for visual thinking. She studied 750 middle schoolers using the test she developed, called the Visual-Spatial Identifier.
The results showed that 33.3% of the students where firmly visual-spatial. Another 30% had a small preference for visual processing, but only 23% where firmly verbal-sequential. This suggests that almost two-thirds of students would benefit, to one degree or another, from multisensory teaching methods.
Nonetheless, it is my belief, based on decades of teaching experience, that virtually everyone (LD, ADD, ASD, special needs, or typical leaner) can benefit from multisensory teaching in music. Here’s how I do it:
- How to Color Code Music Notes for LD & Special Needs Distance Learning
- Color Coding Music for Success
- Playing the Piano with Color Coded Notes
- How to Color Code Guitar Tab for LD Achievement
- Color Coded Quarter Note Clapping
- Lego Rhythm Manipulatives
Join me for in-person or online lessons today!
References
Coon, Dennis. Introduction to Psychology: Exploration and Application. 4th ed. St. Paul: West, 1986.
Hubicki, Margaret. “A Multisensory Approach to the Teaching of Musical Notation.” Music and Dyslexia: Opening New Doors. Eds. T.R. Miles and John Westcombe. London: Whurr, 2001. 85 – 100.
Silverman, Linda K. Gifted Development. 5 Jan. 2006 <http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm >.
© 2020 Geoffrey Keith
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