The thrill of hearing a mother's singing, the joy of moving to music played by an older sibling, the awareness of sounds around the play yard, and the growing ability to tell who or what is creating these pleasurable experiences all encourage young children to be involved in the world around them.

Such involvement is a fundamental condition of life, for the child, for the parent, for success in life. When children are born, they thrive only if certain experiences are continually available, including sufficient light, sound, nourishment, and human touch. To respond to these stimuli, the infant comes equipped with many reflexes, such as an eye-blink response, the ability to suck, and the ability to hear and orient toward sounds.

Beyond a collection of universal basic responses, however, all else must be learned: how to walk, how to talk and in what language, how to use numbers, how to solve problems, and all the skills and knowledge that a child must acquire to be a successful, contributing member of family and community.

Most adults understand the need to give children time and experience to experience growth. They have watched brothers and sisters grow, they have seen neighborhood children develop, and they have observed their own children with excitement and pride. Though adults generally realize that children need both opportunity and support, when it comes to understanding the developmental pattern of music and steady beat, many adults seem to believe that such skill happens automatically.

In an international study by the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, about 2,000 teachers and 5,000 parents in 15 countries were asked about the importance of general physical development for the preschool child, including developing steady beat competence (Weikart, 1999). Both groups thought that it was an area of modest importance but that no teaching was necessary for it to occur.

But listen to some adults when they try to sing. Could these adults pitch songs for children? Would they know if a child was on pitch? Watch some of them attempt to dance. Could these adults label the movements they are doing? Would they know if a child was labeling them correctly?

It would seem that development of these abilities to a comfortable and cognitive level of competence is not automatic; many adults have difficulty with singing and steady beat. Such skills are not that difficult to learn for persons of any age, but developing a sufficient level of competence requires support from knowledgeable adults and plenty of opportunities for active engagement in targeted learning experiences.

Indeed, it is relatively easy to help young children develop a basic level of skill in music and steady beat competence. Children want to sing and they demand to be active, making most action songs and singing games popular events in early childhood settings. Although most preschool teachers include group movement and music activities in their programs (usually at circle or large-group time) because they are enjoyable, it is important to understand that such activities also contribute to many aspects of children's overall development.

Standardized testing shows that children with steady beat independence are better readers and more successful in mathematics. Further, teachers report that children with better abilities in steady beat are more well behaved in class and have less aggressive physical contact with other students. Steady beat seems to help in these areas because it contributes to children's ability to concentrate, to understand space and distance, and to have better control of physical movements.

So how do we help children become more skilled in music and steady beat? Children learn by exploring, sharing, imitating, describing, comparing, contrasting, and applying. They learn by planning their action and by reflecting on that action to take it to a conscious verbal level. As adults we often tire of the same action song. We may naturally resent it when a child requests that the group skip again, when we would rather engage in a new movement. However, we must recognize that repetition is an essential component for building basic skills. Repetition builds understanding. We need to encourage children to talk about what they are going to do — for example, to describe how they plan to move from their cleanup tasks to the circle-time area.

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