Your child enjoys listening to all musical styles.
Just hearing a specific type of music over and over does not seem to affect your child’s listening preferences, but your approval and support do have a positive influence on your child’s musical preferences. By nature, music is a social experience because it is shared with others as your child shows you how he sings, dances, or plays instruments.
Music is also an area of creative development that provides your child opportunities to enhance his cognitive thinking skills by providing practice in patterns, math concepts, and symbolic thinking skills.
As your child learns to distinguish different sounds in music, his thinking and memory skills will grow. Repeating songs he has heard before helps your child remember sounds and words in order for a certain amount of time.
These skills are learned through the enjoyment of music. For instance, many children’s songs have counting in them, such as “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” or “Five Little Monkeys.” The rhythms of these songs make it easier for your child to absorb math concepts.
Singing is natural for your child. Parents frequently hear their child break into a song or chanting; these chants are not true songs but consist of repeated tones. Physical, rhythmic movement, such as walking, hopping, pounding, or rocking, may accompany singing and chanting (e.g. “Ants Go Marching”).
Don’t get too ahead of your child’s development at age three. Even though he breaks into spontaneous chants, he is still having difficulty carrying a tune.
