For years, moms have been making their kids take summertime piano lessons. Not surprisingly, moms know best: it turns out those piano lessons may have helped you more than you realize. Over the summer, students typically lose over 22% of what they learned the previous year. They call it “summer slide” and Kim Bellini, director of the LearningRx center in The Woodlands, Texas, has seen it firsthand.
In a recent article, Bellini says “Speaking from my experience as a teacher, we typically spend the first six to eight weeks of the school year helping students relearn what they forgot over the summer. It’s just like working out muscles – you have to keep your brain trained.”
So, how can we keep kids’ brains in shape and avoid summer slide? Here’s one way that might surprise you.
Summer Slide – A Smart (and Musical) Idea
I once heard a lecture by a man named Andrew Pudewa, called The Profound Effects of Music on Life. It was a generally fascinating lecture about music and how it’s really good for your brain. He said that, for developing a child’s brain, playing the piano is one of the best things possible because it integrates four key elements: Read the rest of this entry »
