Music & Dance
Overview
Music and dance supports learners in a myriad of ways, including supporting their engagement and motivation, connecting with cultural background, and offering structure during play. Music and dance can provide a safe and fun environment where learners feel comfortable expressing themselves, supporting Social Awareness & Relationship Skills. While for some students with Sensory Integration difficulties music can be therapeutic, it is important to know that for others it can contribute to sensory overload. Integrating classroom content into music and dance can support Long-term memory by engaging auditory processes, Emotions, and physical movement, as well as serving as a form of mnemonic device. When students create their own songs and corresponding dance moves, they use Creativity that encourages them to reflect on how to represent what they are learning in a different way. It is important to note that while music and dance can support engagement through cultural connections, especially when learners are included in selecting music that resonates with them, to best support learning and memory of content, music and dance should be integrated into the learning itself, having students rewrite lyrics to familiar songs and add dance movements that relate to the concepts and skills they are learning. There is mixed research on the benefits, or lack thereof, of background music on Attention and learning. Although it has shown to have benefits on arousal, there is also evidence to suggest it can be distracting and impair learning.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch this middle teacher use music to increase students' math achievement and interest.
Design It into Your Product
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Multisensory Supports Strategies
Communication boards are displays of graphics (e.g., pictures, symbols, illustrations) and/or words where learners can gesture or point to the displays to extend their expressive language potential.
Creating visual representations such as drawings, diagrams, graphs, and concept maps, whether student or teacher-generated, can help students process abstract concepts, enhancing understanding and retention of information.
Using motions to explain new concepts or ideas supports the ability to process new information and to convey thinking and conceptual understanding.
