Tasha Bretten on Supporting Literacy Through Music

In this interview Tasha Bretten from Boogie Mites tells us how her musical childhood supported her work as a Primary school teacher and was a factor for her to change to Early Years Music teaching after she attended Boogie Mites with her own children. She talks passionately about her belief, founded on neuromusical evidence and experience, that regular opportunities for effective music-making in early years is the key to preparing children for Primary school, particularly providing strong foundations for literacy, an area where so many get left behind if they don’t start school with strong foundations in place.

Tasha is passionate about the mission of Boogie Mites: To share music knowledge, confidence and resources with practitioners and parents, to harness the brain boosting power of music each and every day. You Can Do It!

Sign up to access the 2 songs covered in the webinar plus supporting videos and information:

1. Gonna Tap (Boogie Mites tapping and drumming song for 2- 5 years)
2. Hip Hap Happy (Michael Rosen poem put to music by Boogie Mites for 2-5 years))

https://ex246.infusionsoft.app/app/form/eytv-song-resources

You will be asked to note your early years setting name so that it can be registered with a licence to use these 2 songs and you will receive access to the resources via Boogie Mites Customer Hub. The account will be held on the email submitted which will be linked to the setting.

You can find out about Boogie Mites Music programmes and online training packages here: https://www.boogiemites.co.uk/product-category/practitioner-products/

Tasha presents many of the training videos included in the package. They also include a series of neuromusical evidence videos modules presented by Dr Anita Collins who has appeared on EYTV recently.

Boogie Mites also offer onsite training to launch Boogie Mites in a setting or group of settings. Contact sue@boogiemites.co.uk to find out about training options.

“Training was INCREDIBLE! Everyone left so motivated, full of knowledge and genuinely raring to go to get it all back into their nursery. Please pass on the hugest thank you from all of us again.”
– Sarah Fromageot, Kindred Nurseries November 2022 training day launch.

We also offer and encourage parent involvement packages to our licensee settings. At the moment we have an opportunity for you and your parents to sign up to take part in our app development project which Tasha mentioned. You can sign up until end of February 2023 and provide feedback to support our app for home use creation by ned of March. All info and sign-up link is in this blog:

https://www.boogiemites.co.uk/happy-vibes-dancing-feet-and-brilliant-brains/

Happy boogie-ing!

Links:

The blog about the App is here: https://www.boogiemites.co.uk/happy-vibes-dancing-feet-and-brilliant-brains/

Webinar schedule – These will be updated throughout the year – this link is for those already available so far: https://www.boogiemites.co.uk/product-category/webinars/

Ambassador app development sign up – https://ex246.infusionsoft.app/app/form/boogie-mites-ambassador-sign-up
Sign up to Boogie Mites Music Club fb page:
https://www.facebook.com/BoogieMitesMusicClub/
Sign up to Boogie Mites practitioner’s page:
https://www.facebook.com/BoogieMites

Research for further reading:

Brown, E. D., Blumenthal, M. A., & Allen, A. A. (2022). The sound of self-regulation: Music program relates to an advantage for children at risk. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 60, 126-136.

Brown, E. D., Garnett, M. L., Velazquez-Martin, B. M., & Mellor, T. J. (2018). The art of Head Start: Intensive arts integration associated with advantage in school readiness for economically disadvantaged children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 45, 204-214.

Ritblatt, S., Longstreth, S., Hokoda, A., Cannon, B. N., & Weston, J. (2013). Can music enhance school-readiness socioemotional skills?. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 27(3), 257-266.

Williams, K. E. (2018). Moving to the beat: Using music, rhythm, and movement to enhance self-regulation in early childhood classrooms. International Journal of Early Childhood, 50(1), 85-100.

Moreno, S., Friesen, D., & Bialystok, E. (2011). Effect of music training on promoting preliteracy skills: Preliminary causal evidence. Music perception, 29(2), 165-172.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-021-00097-5

We show that preschoolers who performed well on the beat synchronization task outscored their peers on all preliteracy measures and had more robust FFRs. Furthermore, the good synchronizers experienced less degradation of certain FFR measures when listening in noise. Together, our results are consistent with the view that rhythm, preliteracy, and auditory processing are interconnected during early childhood.