highlights from key national research on arts education
Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections
This report builds on the high level of current interest and emerging research in early childhood development and states that, �a close look at what constitutes the best kind of experience for infants and young children leads quickly to the arts. From a baby�s first lullaby, to a three-year-old's experimentation with finger paint, to a seven-year-old's dramatization of a favorite story, developmentally appropriate arts experience is critical. For all children, at all ability levels, the arts play a central role in cognitive, motor, language, and social-emotional development. The arts motivate and engage children in learning, stimulate memory, and facilitate understanding, enhance symbolic communication, promote relationships, and provide an avenue for building competence. The arts are natural for young children. Child development specialists note that play is the business of young children; play is the way children promote and enhance their development.� (p.V)
A chart provides developmentally appropriate activities in the arts that are helpful to parents and early childhood professionals alike. Examples of arts education resources, research, and programs are also included.
The report was produced by the national Arts Education Partnership and its Task Force on Children's Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight. Washington, DC. Read the full report.
References were made to Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, 1998 and to the Youth Theatre Journal.
