Melodic Learning: More Torque for the Learning Engine

Susan Homan
Ph.D.Professor Emeritus,Childhood Education and Literacy Studies
University of South Florida

One day on Sesame Street the little girl asked Grover…

“Now here is a question, a question for you. Remember, the answer will start with a ‘Q’. Just think of a duck, be it white, brown, or black. What sound does it make? Why, a duckie goes...”

…and Grover learned quickly and he learned well. Since this rhyme first debuted on PBS millions of children have learned incredible amounts from basic phonics to complex cultural issues. It seems that children singing and playing in front of the television sometimes absentmindedly watching a show like Sesame Street learn a great deal and they retain what they learn (Truglio & Fisch, 2001). Why is so much learned via this seemingly unsophisticated process? Thirty years of research on Sesame Street provides one avenue of support for the power and torque of Melodic Learning. The fundamental components of Melodic Learning are discussed in this White Paper.

At first glance this seems to be merely a child watching television. This, however, is not nearly the full picture. Sesame Street was created to provide young children with the opportunity to experience and advance their emergent literacy processes through poems, jingles, chants, word games and singing songs. Several of the principles of literacy learning are interacting to maximize this learning experience. Rhyming and singing provide a high level of multi-modal interactions involving visual, auditory/aural, and kinesthetic modalities (Baines, 2008). Rhythmic and tonal processing is vital to success in this learning process.
There is actually a combination of five specific ways that children can learn in play. Aural, visual, kinesthetic, rhythmic and tonal processing simultaneously engage as learning taking place.

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