Our role as adults is to nurture and progress the developing mind of a young child. Children have an incredible capacity to absorb and digest new information. Parents and teachers can enhance the learning process by reading books on childhood development. Books written by leading doctors and specialists, in the field of this consistently progressing science, can help us to understand how the young mind works. Books on childhood development can contain many resources from developmental theory, to fitness and nutrition. All of the best books on childhood development contain a progressive series of steps and exercises, to utilize the knowledge of the industry, in the most beneficial way to a child’s learning development. If a parent or teacher has taken the initiative to further develop their own understanding of a child’s learning process, books on childhood development are an excellent step toward raising an independent and healthy child.

Books on Childhood Development for Parents

It is natural for parents with a young child, to feel intimidated by the pressure of raising children to their potential. Hitting developmental milestones, socialization and providing exercise with quality nutrition is a huge undertaking for any parent, even with a background in childcare and development. A combination of workshops and books on childhood development, can prepare a parent, or expecting Mother or Father to-be, with fantastic resources. There are many books on childhood development, but parents shouldn’t be alarmed by the variety of choices. A notable example is, “Childhood Development a Primer” by Doctor Ingrid Crowther. This reference text is designed to present developmental milestones in a quick, easy to find format. Physical, social, cognitive, emotional and language intelligences are all covered from birth to twelve. Families benefit from owning books on childhood development, to walk them through the process of teaching the growing child, throughout their learning years.

Books on Childhood Development for Teachers

Teachers know that like their students, learning is an ongoing process, which should be developed and tuned with consistency. Whether a teacher is responsible for pre-school children, or elementary aged kids, books on childhood development are an excellent supplement to the knowledge already acquired, to lay the foundations for preparing students for subsequent levels of education. When searching for books on early childhood education, consider the third edition of, “Effective Learning Environments,” by Dr. Crowther. The excerpt describes this fantastic learning tool, which is completed with independent learning activities posted on the web to accompany the text:

Books on childhood development can supplement the existing knowledge and information to both parents and teachers. They provide childcare providers with a variety of methods, and a progressive approach, to a child reaching their full potential in all aspects of their learning process.

Music is natural to us. We can sing the melodies of popular songs without ever taking a lesson. So why do most people who take music lessons to learn to play an instrument not get very far. It’s because of the way most music teachers teach. They teach you how to read music for your instrument. You aren’t learning how to play music, you are learning how to read music. Learning to read music for simple songs is not that hard but learning to read the complex musical notation for the up to date songs you really want to play is much harder. There are three approaches to learning to play an instruments.

Learning by ear is the way most of us learn to sing. We learn to sing songs just by listening to them. Many successful professional performing musicians, who can’t read music, have used this method. People who do karaoke usually can’t read music but can perform popular songs that would look very complicated as written music. Having a good ear for music is the most essential skill a musician can have. For the many successful musicians who are blind reading music is not even a option.

Being able to read musical notation is a valuable skill. It was invented to so that a musical work could be documented and passed on to others. Before that, the only way to learn a piece of music was to hear someone else play it. With the age of recorded music there was a new way. Music has become very portable. We all can have our favorite music to listen to over and over again. Learning to read music for simple songs is not that hard. The problem is that the musical notation for the popular songs that we want to sing or play is not simple. That popular song that you learned to sing so easily by ear has complex and difficult musical notation.

Music theory is the approach that teaches us how music works. All music is based on a few simple building blocks and rules. What seems to be hundreds of different songs reduces down to a much smaller number of musical formulas. Learning about the building blocks of music and the rules for using them simplifies music and makes it much easier to learn. It sounds technical but it’s simply knowing how groups of notes produce sounds.

What’s the best blend of the three approaches to learning to play an instruments. It depends. If you want to play classical you will put a strong emphasis on reading music. If you want to play rock, blues or jazz, you need a good ear and a knowledge of the groups of notes that give you the sounds that you want. There is nothing wrong with learning to read and write music. It’s a very valuable skill but you shouldn’t let it hold you back.