Have you ever heard of Zoltan Kodaly? Mr. Kodaly (1882-1967) was a Hungarian music educator who emphasized the following concepts (among others):

-Music education must begin with the very young

-Music education should incorporate folk music

-Music education should incorporate games, movement, playing instruments, reading and writing music with singing

-Music education should follow a child’s natural sequential learning development:

-Aural-oral-kinesthetic

-Written-pictoral-abstract

-Read-recognized

At Hamlin we are lucky to have music teacher Kate Roseman who is trained in the Kodaly method. Kate studied at the Kodaly school in Hungary and even met his widowed wife. Ms. Roseman told me that the Kodaly method “reinforces a lot of academic activities through music.” I asked her what she likes best about Kodaly. Roseman states, “It is a teach a girl to fish philosophy, it helps you learn how to decipher the language of music on your own.”

This image above shows how students incorporate reading and writing into their music education.

Here is a video of some students in a Kindergarten class singing the folk song Dina.