1. Introduction

This report focuses on infants and toddler’s learning skills and how those skills extend learning of other aspect. The background of this topic looks at the listening process and the importance of listening for infants and toddler’s development. The fist section uses learning theory and curricular approaches to examine infants and toddler’s listening skill’s development. The second section examines the themes of security, identity and exploration and illustrates the significance of listening skills with those three themes. The last section discusses the links with Te Whariki, the art curriculum and recommendations for practice.

2. Background.

“At all levels, all music experience is dependent on perceptive listening and a sensitive response to music’s expressive qualities” (Ministry of Education, 1993, p31). From this view we can see clearly that listening is quite important for children’s music development and learning especially for infants and toddlers because of their limited abilities. The sense of hearing function begins in the womb. Newborns can imitate the pitch of different sounds and identify the sound of their mother’s voice. But hearing is not listening. Lerner, Mardell-Czudnowski and Goldenberg identified listening process as hearing, focusing on what is heard, identifying what is heard, translating this into meaning and interpreting it and then remembering it (MacNaughton & Williams,2004). “The key to development of listening skills is the ability to perceive sounds and to form thoughts about those sounds” (Campbell & Scott-Kassner,1995, p159). For infants and toddlers, educators can encourage children to experience with a variety of sounds and to become more sensitive in their listening. The variety of sounds including sounds from natural environment, songs, play instrument and record equipment. Familiar music can increase infants and toddlers’ interests and understanding (Ministry of education, 1993). The active listening skills can enforce children other aspect’s development such as the development of language, physical and relationships.

3. Literature review

Albert Bandura recognizes that children acquire many skills including listening through modeling (Berk, 2004). His social learning theory believe that modeling and observational learning can be seen as a powerful source of development (Berk, 2004). In other words, observation learning give observers opportunity to attend to other people’s behavior, then observers might remember this behavior as a model and then replicate it in different situation. Children especially infants and toddlers response to others simply by observing and listening what are parents or caregivers doing around them. A research about infant’s musical development demonstrated that children learn to how to listen by doing as their models do (Isenberg &Jalongo, 2006). Educators can be a model to show active listening skills to children to help them learn such as listening carefully and focus on what is heard (MacNaughton & Williams, 2004). One positive way of Model good listening habits for infants and toddlers in the early childhood setting can be reassure them that they will be heard (Jalongo, 1996).

Lave and Wenger’s situated learning theory put forward Albert Bandura’s social learning theory by considering that social experience provide the proper context for learning to take place (Smith, 1999). Newborns can recognize their mother’s voice and they are also able to “discriminate their mother’s voice from others and alter their behavior to select it”, because newborns had a lot of listening experience with their mothers (Wylie, 2004,p10). “When listening experiences are tailored to develop their musical abilities, then the complete musicians inside then begin to emerge” (Campbell &Scott-Kassner, 1995, p7). Every child has individual experience to make sense of their learning. However, Infants and toddlers listen to music and sound what parents and educators offer to them. Therefore, Parents and educators’ taste and preference of music might limit infants and toddlers’ listening experience. In order to overcome those barrieries, educators and parents need to open mind to a wide range of music and provide more chances for them to listen to different sounds. Repeating experience can help children to improve their listening skills especially for young children. Young children need time and take effort to consider what they received from outer world. Based on respectful pedagogy, educators and parents also need to think about the quality of music and choose the most suitable music for children. For example, “researchers have found that sounds of five to fifteen seconds seem to have the most effect on the infant’s level of activity and heart rate” (Isenberg &Jalongo, 2006, P110). If educators or parents choose long music for infants, the music not only can not stimulate children’s listening skills, but also waste children’s energy to focus on it. Infants need some quiet time and soft tones, by comparison, toddlers need more complex music (Denham, 2001).

Gordon suggest that “the highest level of music aptitude occurs immediately after birth when the infant is most attuned to the slightest variations in sound, not yet knowing what their language or culture is going to expect them to know” (Wylie, 2006, p30). Isenberg and Jalongo agree with Gordon’s idea, they stated that “children quite naturally listen, sing, dance, play and express themselves musically, with little or no previous training” (Isenberg and Jalongo, 2006, p7). The natural responses to music is a gift for all children. Educators need to be as open and as creative as possible; music environment should be as flexible as possible. In order to prompt infants and toddler’s listening skills, a environment that is full of a variety of sounds need to be provided. Creating a listening environment means “making efforts to help children focus, eliminate distractions, and overcome barriers to listening” (Jolongo, 1996, p22). Olds suggest that natural environment provide subtle variations of sound such as rain, wind, birds, and so on for children to explore (Denham, 2001). Educators need to bring attitudes of openness, curiosity, and discovery to the act of listening.

“The Reggio approach is a constructivist project approach and emergent curriculum based on teachers’ abilities to attend carefully and thoughtfully to children’s interests and curiosity”(Jordan-DeCarbo & Nelson, 2002, p229). In this approach, young children were viewed as competent and their early experiences are valued as meaningful. Children’s listening experience started at mother’s womb. Before birth, the foetus hears tone, pitch, melody and rhythm pattern through their mother’s body. Listening to people’s voice and noticing differences from other sounds seems to be an early skill of human beings. Infants are able to imitate the pitch of different sounds. “From the very beginning child will learn the skills of listening as parents or educators talk and the child coos back in a loving interplay” (Wylie, 1996, p21.) Encourage young children to respond to their educators’ voice and at the same time listen to children’s voice carefully. If educators can listen carefully to young children’s voice, they will understand what young children’s current interests are and are able to respond and extend their interests properly. Young children will learn how to listen activity by observing their educators or parents’ behaviors. The pleasure experience of listening activity can enforce children’s further music development.

“Montessori curricular approach tend to have a belief in child as an active learner in an interactive environment who is constructing and revising her versions of the world and finding multiple means to interpret and express them”(Jordan-DeCarbo & Nelson, 2002, p232). Young children actively explore different sounds around them even before born. Newborns are able to recognize their mother’s voice. This special listening capability of newborns encourage parents to communicate with their babies to extend their further listening development (Gonzalez-Mena & Eyer, 2004). The interaction between infants and parents not only strengths the emotional tie, but also stimulate children’s language development.

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