Teaching four to six year olds to play the piano

Teaching four – six year olds

This discussion covers teaching four, five and six year old children to play the piano.  First I’ll run through the main challenges to be aware of with this age group, then I’ll review some materials which I have used in my lessons, and finally I’ll recap the main points I’ve discussed today.

Main challenges

When discussing the main challenges of teaching four – six year olds, it’s necessary to consider the individual child, common characteristics of this age group, and more general teaching challenges that include young children.

An important factor to bear in mind when considering this age group is that there can be great variety between children of the same age, and some children may not yet be ready to learn in an individual lesson environment, whereas others may be more mature.  This makes it crucial to meet the child, and to discuss the child’s personality, behaviour and so on with the parent, before beginning lessons, or else to offer some trial lessons before a longer commitment is established.  Another key influence is the parents’ or carers’ attitude and level of involvement.  It will also help, as with students of any age, to keep an ongoing dialogue with the child as lessons progress.  

Below are a few other relevant characteristics of four – six year olds:

• Short attention spans
• Need to be physically active
• Mental developmental stage –they may not be able to read, or not yet know some words or concepts
• Physical developmental stage – they may not have refined motor control, and have smaller hands and weaker fingers

Other factors which affect students of any age include:

• The need to accommodate student’s mood, level of preparation/recall from previous lesson, interest in material/activities etc
• Quality/existence of an instrument available to the student outside the lessons

Lesson content

In terms of the lessons themselves, the following approaches can help to accommodate most of the challenges I mentioned:

• Have many different, short activities reinforcing the same goal
• Break up time spent sitting at piano with other activities
• Limit the amount of time spent using paper-based material
• Use a variety of vocabulary, explain musical terms in several different ways, continuously monitor the child’s understanding
• Build technique gradually, in achievable steps

In general it’s important to:

• adjust the variety to suit the child (some love repetition, some get bored easily)
• always have more materials and activities planned to draw on at will
• treat lesson plans flexibly to keep lessons feeling fresh
• use child’s mood/ideas/daily experiences as springboard into lesson activities, to keep them engaged and make the material relevant to their experience
• Prioritise fun, musical experiences – remember that initially you’re teaching them music, not just the instrument itself
• Set realistic parent expectations which avoid pressurising child
• Encourage parent-child co-practise, and set clear homework that parent can understand/monitor

Practice 

Practise will be intermittent, and often the parents need educating too, about what to expect from their child and how to support them at home.  Here are a few points: 

• A homework notebook is essential as a guide and reference when at home
• Expect progress to be slower than with older students
• Reinforce the same activities several times in lessons, to help the child to remember the task at home
• Paper based homework (colouring, labelling, stickers etc) can be useful, as it’s familiar to child from school etc and often provides a good route into a practice session at home
• Also physical activities (clapping, marching etc) can encourage practice while providing musical value
• Include some more creative activities to keep the child enthused and taking ownership of their music making, for example:

1. Improvising (with and without CD accompaniment)
2. Playing stories/ideas on piano – eg weather, mother’s day, etc
3. Exploring the instrument – high/low, fast/slow, looking inside, black-key groups, pedals etc

Materials 

Below are a couple of example activities that I have used with this age group. 

Dogs and Birds

The Dogs and Birds teaching method includes a set of wooden animals, alliterating with each white key on the piano (for example, “Dog” corresponds to the note D).  I have used these to introduce and reinforce note names, in aural games (with and without a giant picture of the staff) and to engage in creative play.  If the child owns a set, this can be used in their practise and can encourage their recall of the lesson at home.

My First Piano Adventure Series

I use this series with all my very young students.  The lesson and writing books suggest a range of activities including reading music, writing/drawing, technique, aural skills and creative play, which can be augmented further as desired.  The method also includes an accompanying CD which is a highly effective way to immerse the child in music and to encourage practise.  It also provides an easy way for parents to encourage practise.

Summary

Having discussed the main challenges of teaching four – six year olds to play the piano, and how lessons and practice can be approached, I hope I’ve shown that teaching this age group can be fun and rewarding as long as

• realistic expectations are set, and
• activities are tailored to the child’s ability and personality. 

There is appropriate material available for this age group, as mentioned in my brief reviews, and this can be a great teaching aid, as long as it’s used sensitively with an awareness of what will be most helpful and fun for each individual child.