Minute Masterclass Episode 237

Welcome to your one-minute masterclass. I’m Andrea Trench. If you enjoy our minute masterclasses, consider continuing your professional development as a student in our Foundations Course for Early Childhood Dance Educators and as a member of our DiscoverDance Experience online community. You can learn more about both of these opportunities at DiscoverDance.com.

 This week’s DiscoverDance term is Emergent Literacy Skills. This may seem like a surprising word to be included in our dictionary but you’ll find that many emergent literacy skills are developed in dance class. Emergent literacy skills refers to the skills children need in order to read and write before they can read and write. We know movement is how the brain learns during the early years and when it comes to learning how to read and write, movement, again, is key. When we offer opportunities for dancers to move from a high to low level and left to right across the midline, we are preparing their brains for future reading and writing. When we incorporate props such as scarves, it encourages dancers to focus on the scarf as they move it through space. This eye tracking leads to being able to track the words from left to right across a page in a book. In addition, singing nursery rhymes and reciting poems and chants increases vocabulary and phonological awareness. There’s a reason why we shout dance for development around here! We are learning so much more than dance.

 For more information, to enroll in the Foundations Course, or to join the DiscoverDance Experience, visit DiscoverDance.com.