By Holly Carrell Moore
Music in Early Childhood Education
Ms. Holly sits on the floor, guitarlele in hand, as she teaches a group of 4-year-olds the words to “Who Fed the Chickens?” by Ella Jenkins (1995). Ms. Valencia, the classroom teacher, invited Ms. Holly to share about this children’s music pioneer as a supplement to discussions about Black history. Ms. Holly has brought in several of Ms. Jenkins’s call-and-response songs as well as a selfie she took with the songwriter during a NAEYC national conference almost 10 years earlier. After sharing the photo, talking about Ms. Jenkins, and teaching the song, Ms. Holly strums the guitarlele (a small guitar the size of a ukulele), and the call and response begins:
Ms. Holly: Who fed the chickens?
Children: We did!
Ms. Holly: Who stacked the hay?
Children: We did!
Ms. Holly: Who milked the cow?
Children: We did!
Ms. Holly: On this fine day . . .
Ms. Holly observes as the children respond vigorously and eagerly to each call-and-response invitation.
Music plays an important role in young children’s development and learning. In addition to providing joy, creativity, and meaning making (Salvador 2019), researchers have linked it to self-regulation, social and emotional development, and language and literacy for both mono- and multilingual learners (Kirby et al. 2023). It is part of a developmentally appropriate curriculum when thoughtfully introduced into play and instructional activities (Salvador 2019; NAEYC 2020). Music can also help advance equity in that it is an integral part of different cultures and ethnic identities (NAEYC 2019) and allows both children and teachers to share their backgrounds and experiences (Niland & Holland 2019). Yet even with these important benefits, researchers have expressed a need for strengthening educators’ preparation in music-related experiences and education (see Bautista et al. 2022).
As a former music, kindergarten, and Head Start educator who now works with preservice early childhood teachers, I volunteer to share music at the community preschool where the candidates I teach complete their weekly field placements. This opportunity evolved after one of the program’s educators asked if I could recommend any articles about using music in the early learning setting. I offered a few suggestions then boldly asked if I might begin sharing music on Fridays. This would help me get to know the children my preservice teachers worked with and allow me to collaborate with the program’s educators. It also would answer my longing for the connection, joy, and meaning that come from joint music making.
The teachers agreed, and I began working with them to match music experiences to their lessons and activities. I also worked to incorporate some music education elements from my former life as a full-time music teacher. Call-and-response singing, transition songs, dance parties, instrument playing, and singing games became part of children’s learning and provided a way for us all to connect, engage, and have fun together.
Reflecting on the program teacher’s request for more articles on integrating music and teaching, I became curious about how music has been discussed, shared, and practiced with young children throughout NAEYC’s history and periodicals. NAEYC’s centennial offered an opportunity for a 100-year review! This historical knowledge, combined with current research and practice, provides powerful insights into the importance of including music in early childhood spaces and how best to do it. In this article, I highlight the ways music has been discussed and written about over the past 100 years at NAEYC and offer tips for current practitioners looking to incorporate music into their settings today.
Music Perspectives from NAEYC’s Heritage
Patty Smith Hill, one of the founders of the organization we now know as NAEYC, was a proponent of music in early childhood settings. She and her sister, Mildred, composed many songs for children, including “Good Morning to All,” which was eventually rewritten as “Happy Birthday.” Although the Hill sisters understood the importance of melodies and words that aligned with children’s development (Allen 2016), it took some time before early childhood educators recognized that many folk songs and rhymes were also musically accessible, rich examples of language and culture (see Jones & Hawes 1972; Orozco 1998).
Until this realization, practitioners hoping to learn how to include music in early childhood settings could turn to bulletins published by the National Association for Nursery Education (NAEYC’s predecessor). At first, short pieces noted music-related workshops or trainings. Later bulletins included entries that focused on dedicated music books and resources. These references to musical training and the careful selection of materials built on the writings and teachings of Hill and her followers.
For example, in an introduction to a text on music, Hill noted the importance of music in the classroom but cautioned against depending too much on the piano and too little on individual or group singing (1929). While she did not propose avoiding the piano, Hill did invite children and teachers to sing without accompaniment or to use handheld or folk instruments. She invited teachers to think about how children might “experiment with tone through other channels than [their] own vocal chords” and offered suggestions, such as “bells and xylophones and water glasses, drums, rattles, tambourines, and many other . . . modes of musical play” (Hill 1929, xiii). She also called for teachers to consider children’s abilities when selecting music to teach and share. This aligned with Hill’s own practice: She often took careful notes when sharing songs that she and her sister composed so that they could refine and adjust to better meet children’s abilities and interests (Allen 2016).
Almost 20 years after Hill’s writings, another early childhood pioneer, Ella Jenkins, began sharing folk songs with young people at a summer YWCA camp. These were songs she had learned in her childhood neighborhood, and they came from many cultures and languages (Smithsonian Folkways 2024). Thus began Jenkins’s lifetime of work as a musician for children. Throughout her performing and teaching, she stressed the importance of sharing music that allowed children to “go beyond the culture that they are growing up with” (Jenkins 2014). Folk songs and music from other cultures, she said, could allow children to “listen, sing along, and learn about people from many parts of the world” (Jenkins 2014). In addition to her catalogue of award-winning recordings, Jenkins shared her music at NAEYC conferences and on television programs. As she stated in an interview in 2014 at age 90, “Music is so very important. It’s an important way we can communicate with one another, with children, at home, at school, and around the world” (Friedman 2014).
Music Perspectives from NAEYC’s Journals
The story of music in early childhood education is woven throughout NAEYC’s history. It unfolds across the pages of NAEYC journals: From the Bulletin of the National Association for Nursery Education (1945–1956) to The Journal of Nursery Education (1956–1964) to Young Children (1964–2024). Music also appears in the pages of Teaching Young Children, NAEYC’s magazine for preschool professionals (2007–2025).
A search across these publications using a combination of the words music, rhythm, and singing produces over 80 articles. In many of these pieces, music is presented as a pedagogical tool for supporting other domains and content areas, including language and literacy; arts and culture; science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); and cognitive development. Music is described as an important component of an early childhood setting and as a skill and gift to be developed (see “Music as a Pedagogical Tool” below).
For example, in a 1975 Young Children (YC) article, Evie Kosower shared how music should be one of the areas available for children to explore. She highlighted four kindergarten teachers who worked as a team to allow children to move between classrooms during certain times of the day. Besides outlining the philosophy, guidelines, scheduling, challenges, and family inclusion efforts of this approach, Kosower described a typical day and offered examples of supports for children who might need assistance when given such choice. Activities included
Art and child-initiated projects in one classroom
Emergent reading and writing activities in another
Math and science activities in a third classroom
A room for music, dramatic play, and sewing
That last room allowed children to explore a piano and rhythm instruments, to participate in visits by musicians, and to occasionally share in whole-group music experiences before dismissal. During quiet or rest time, children also had the option to go to a room that included music playing quietly. Fifty years later, the ideas in Kosower’s article are helpful for teachers who want to collaborate and share space to provide child-led choices to explore instruments and singing.
In other articles from the YC archive, music was used to help children from birth through the early primary grades learn curricular content:
In 1992, Kathy Dulaney Barclay and Lynn Walwer reviewed the power of song picture books to help support children’s emergent literacy, concepts of print, and fluency skills. These books included titles such as Down by the Bay, by Raffi; The Friendly Beasts, by Tomie dePaola; and Over in the Meadow, by Olive A. Wadsworth and Ezra Jack Keats.
In 2009, Eugene Geist suggested supporting infants’ and toddlers’ developing math patterning skills (recognizing, repeating, extending patterns) by rocking to music, playing rhythm instruments to a steady beat, and moving to music with repeated rhythmic patterns.
Sally Moomaw and Jaumall A. Davis shared in 2010 how they extended preschoolers’ recognition and repetition of patterns by clapping rhythmic bird song patterns and by using solfège (a system where each pitch in the musical scale is given a syllable) to sing repeated bird calls.
Anne K. Soderman and colleagues wrote in 2013 how poems, songs, and nursery rhymes can help dual language learners in preschool through first grade practice a new language in nonthreatening and enjoyable ways. Activities included engaging in repetition, investigating rhyming words and a language’s rhythms, and using visuals and props to connect words to meanings.
In 2020, Betsy Diamant-Cohen described Mother Goose on the Loose, a program centered around sharing nursery rhymes and songs with infants, toddlers, and their families to support children’s development of oral language, emergent literacy, and social and emotional skills.
Music also helps early childhood educators connect to and teach about children’s cultures. In a 2021 issue of Teaching Young Children, Anthony Broughton offered examples of how he incorporated hip-hop culture into his preschool learning setting. As children engaged in rapping, emceeing, deejaying, breaking, and beatboxing, they shared ideas and emotions through words, movements, and visual representations. They also incorporated social justice themes by composing and reciting rhythmic verses about important social topics. Hip-hop allowed Broughton to connect to children’s lives and introduce musical experiences in which they could express themselves, practice language and literacy, and develop thinking and movement skills.
Celebrating Music for Its Own Sake
Beyond these mentions of music as a pedagogical tool to support learning across content areas and domains, more than 30 articles including the terms music, rhythm, and singing present music as important in its own right (see “Centering Music” below). In these Young Children articles, practitioners are invited to select music and materials that offer children meaningful and joyful experiences while singing, playing, listening to, moving to, and creating music. These opportunities may occur spontaneously throughout the day; be part of planned, child-directed learning centers; or be taught through teacher-directed instruction.
For example, in a 1966 issue, Charity Bailey offered tips for ways that educators could use their observations of children’s interests, strengths, and areas of growth to plan music-focused activities. Even those without musical training could teach songs, offer listening activities, and provide instruments for children to play while also allowing time for children’s spontaneous singing and movement. Bailey suggested a variety of music formats, such as songs with repeated phrases and/or parts children could sing themselves, singing games, songs with actions, and music with different rhythms to encourage different kinds of movement.
Ten years later, Palmyra Andrews noted
The time allotted for music is all time, for who can impose a stop/go switch on children freely swinging and leaping in the play yard or imitating fall leaves or gusty March winds or singing their “babies” to sleep in the homemaking area or singing their own songs as they paint at the easel. (1976, 34)
She included many examples of children spontaneously incorporating music while painting, exploring grasshoppers, engaging in dramatic play, and cleaning up blocks. Andrews implored adults to pay attention to music and its power in children’s lives—both as a way to express feelings and as its own experience.
In a 1991 article, Barbara Andress echoed the call to pay attention to children’s interests as she shared multiple ways to help them move expressively to music. Supports included visuals, teacher and peer modeling, descriptions of movements (such as “Jeff is moving his arm so slow” [24]), and invitations to pretend. She even offered movements for different age levels: Bouncing, swaying, and swinging arms for 2-year-olds; galloping, jumping, and walking to a beat for 3-year-olds; singing and balancing on one foot for 4-year-olds.
Centering Music
Children make meaning, express themselves, develop musically, and engage creatively when they sing, play instruments, and move to music (Wolf 1992; Niland 2019). These are just a sampling of the many articles featured in NAEYC journals over the years that celebrate and highlight the importance of music as a central feature in learning settings.
“Awakening the Artist: Music for Young Children,” by Dorothy T. McDonald and Jonny H. Ramsey. Young Children, January 1978. Acknowledging the lack of guidance for early childhood educators who want to incorporate music into their settings, the authors present guidelines for choosing materials and planning activities.
“Singing with Infants and Toddlers,” by Alice Sterling Honig. Young Children, July 1995. Soothing, showing comfort, transitioning from one activity to another, building self-esteem, building motor skills—these are just a few of the benefits infants and toddlers experience when adults sing to and with them.
“Creativity in Music and Early Childhood,” by Carolyn Hildebrandt. Young Children, November 1998. In addition to reviewing ways teachers often include music in early childhood, the author shares strategies to help children make their own musical choices.
“The Music, Movement, and Learning Connection,” by Hap Palmer. Young Children, September 2001. American musician Hap Palmer describes how educators can incorporate movement to build on children’s interests and ideas.
“Music Play: Creating Centers for Musical Play and Exploration,” by Kristen Kemple and colleagues. Young Children, July 2004. The authors connect music with play and offer suggestions on how to organize a variety of activities to support children’s musical play, exploration, and experimentation.
“Musical Play in Early Childhood Classrooms: Taking it One Step Further,” by Ellen Cerniglia. Young Children, November 2013. This article shares ways that early childhood educators can offer diverse musical experiences for multiple purposes and benefits. The author also connects activity examples with music standards.
Making Connections: Past, Present, and Future
From early writings to today, some things have changed. Among them, preservice teachers do not often receive training in music, teachers need not have piano skills, and more focus seems to fall on using music for purposes beyond its own sake. Today’s practitioners also have access to a much wider variety of music from many cultures and backgrounds and to more music recordings, programs, theories, and videos of songs and instrumental performances. While the choices are vast, educators can consider earlier NAEYC journal writings for strategies on how to build on children’s interests, cultures, and their own developing musical skills (see Hildebrandt 1998; Cerniglia 2013).
Some things have stayed the same. Music in early childhood settings still includes singing, listening, movement, instruments, and exploration. Because early childhood practitioners are creative and responsive to young learners, they continue to use music for a variety of purposes—both to support other domains and content areas and for music’s own sake. Useful tips for sharing music with children can be found in archived articles (see Jalongo 1996); educators can supplement these strategies with recordings of culturally relevant songs, rhymes, games, and compositions that connect to children’s lives.
As we consider how music is already a vital part of children’s lives (Andrews 1976), we can also connect to our NAEYC history—from Patty Smith Hill inviting us to include music in our settings to trailblazers like Ella Jenkins, who taught us how to incorporate many cultures through songs that evoke joy, laughter, play, and participation. We can also look for the collectors and bearers of music and culture among us (like the recordings from Gabriela Montoya-Stier or José-Luis Orozco). These help us remember the songs and rhymes that honor languages and cultures and that help children feel seen, heard, and valued.
In light of the many articles reviewed here, as well as those reviewed by Salvador (2019) and collected in Fleming (2024), practitioners can consider the following questions when preparing their learning environments and planning music experiences for young learners:
What songs and instrumental music can I introduce to connect with children’s backgrounds, cultures, and families? What will help children learn about other cultures and families?
Am I including singing and rhyming activities that complement children’s developing confidence and skills in these areas?
What instruments can I provide for children (and have children find and create) to explore? Which ones will make them feel competent as they create music?
How can I incorporate movement into musical experiences?
What music experiences am I integrating into my curriculum? What opportunities am I offering to advance children’s interests, leadership, creativity, and explorations?
What parts of sharing music feel comfortable and easy for me, and what parts might I want to learn more about?
These are questions we can share and discuss over the next 100 years as we continue pulling from both past and present to participate in music together. As we do so, may we continue to hold on to those parts of our musical heritage that help us see ourselves, each other, and the children in our care with hearts that beat love and connection across time, across differences, across languages, and toward one another. In looking to the future, let us take up Foster’s invitation as practitioners, families, and children to “lift our voices together” (1965, 376).
About the Author
Holly Carrell Moore, PhD, is an associate professor in early childhood education at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. In addition to her current volunteer work teaching preschool music, she also served as a full-time music teacher from 1993–2003 in Texas schools. holly.moore@salve.edu
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