Early music gets minds humming

In the last 20 years of teaching music to young children, Martha Glaze Zook has discovered ways for them to have fun while learning musical skills.

Zook says music classes should be both a joyful way for children to express themselves and an experience that helps them acquire skills including coordination, memory and language. Music engages their interest and orders their thinking. Kids are born with an impulse to explore sound, and learning music builds on that natural impulse, she says.

At the arts-based Kaleidoscope Preschool at the Settlement Music School in South Philadelphia, Zook leads classes for 75 children. She teaches an additional 60 to 80 in the after-school Children's Music Workshop.

Zook, who has been honored as one of the "Settlement 100" as part of the school's centennial celebration, guides her students in careful listening and keeping the beat.

Movement and clapping lay a rhythmic foundation for language skills and reading. Taught the proper handling of a variety of instruments, children learn to focus attention and improve self-discipline and movement skills. Working with partners and in groups helps develop social skills.

Simply put, Zook says, "they learn to listen carefully, solve little problems, and develop good music skills along the way." - Cheryl Shugars

To see a video of Zook teaching pre-schoolers, go to http://go.philly.com/zookEndText