At this point your child’s sense of hearing and hearing development becomes very closely aligned with her language and speech development and many of the activities described in the section LEVEL 7. BABY LEARNS TO SPEAK AND SING are suitable for her hearing and hearing development as well as being for her language and speech development.

Also, from this point on your child will continue to learn ever more complex language and increasingly complex meanings of words, sentences, speech, tones and body language. She will also learn the increasingly complex meanings of perhaps hundreds of words that describe different types of music and parts of music. These words include waltz, rock, opera, baroque, harpsichord, adagio, percussion, melody, beat, time, reggae, staccato, moderato and allegro. 

The key to your child’s development at this Level is to frequently provide her with a sound and its meaning. (Keep in mind that a word is a sound just as a musical note is a sound). For example:

• When you show her a written word such  “melaleuca” you say the word, ideally show her a melaleuca tree (or a picture of one) and ideally repeat the process three times each day for five days.

• When you strike a note such as C on a piano or other instrument you say “C” and ideally repeat the process three times each day for five days.

If you do this with 10 or more words and several musical sounds each five days then your child’s understanding of music and language (that is, her knowledge) will grow by almost one thousand or more ‘bits of information’ each year. There is therefore potential for her to accumulate a huge amount of knowledge and understanding about music and language over the next few years. Your child will then not only be knowledgeable about music and language but, if she chooses to, she will be able to apply the knowledge in many ways. Some of the ways she can apply her knowledge include; playing an instrument with excellence, communicating with excellence and using whatever knowledge she has to participate in, and learn more about, any activity that interests her.