The purpose of this study was to begin to explore the link of gesture and voice when teaching children and to examine how the children used these gestures in singing. Semistructured interviewing techniques and observation were used extensively to collect information from the respondents. Five children were asked to participate in this preliminary work individually. The results demonstrated that there was a link between children's singing voice and their use of gesture by observing the Dalcrozian mirror and follow games. The functions of gestures could be defined as being for focus, guidance, support, good intonation and sensation. In addition, some specific teaching techniques were required for achieving a more effective gesture and a more successful sound. Gesture techniques helped the children to improve their vocal techniques and correct their vocal faults. This study opened the field for the full study of gesture in aiding children's singing.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of gesture use on young children's singing with regard to improving pitch accuracy. The second purpose was to examine the differences in gesture use among boys and girls and different melodic motions. Eighty Taiwanese young children, five to six years old, participated in this experiment. The children were asked to sing six tonal patterns with and without gestures, which subsequently were evaluated by three professional music teachers. The results showed that gesture use had immediate positive effects for young children in aiding their pitch accuracy. The effect of gestures for girls was greater than for boys. However, the level of gesture effects in melodic motions was different. Gesture had a greater effect for repetition, ascending patterns and large leaps. Sweeping and opening-closing arm gestures especially appeared to work very successfully. This suggests that gestures provided a kinesthetic sense of motion, which can be an effective tool in aiding singing.

The main purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of gesture and movement training for beginning children’s choirs with regard to improving intonation. It was a between-subjects design with one independent variable Training Technique (TT). One dependent variable was measured: intonation in the singing of vocal pattern warm-up exercises. Fifty-three fifth grade students (10–11 years old) participated in the empirical investigation. They were randomly assigned into three training groups: (1) Group 1— students who received no gesture and movement training; (2) Group 2— students who received gesture training; and (3) Group 3— students who received gesture and movement training. The instructional unit, consisting of two 40-minute sessions per week for 24 sessions, focused on vocal development. Each individual was pretested and posttested on singing 5 vocal patterns, selected from some 20 learned in the sessions. Three experts were asked to judge the children’s individual singing of these patterns, assessing intonation. Results showed that the children who received gesture and/or movement training sang significantly more in tune than those who did not. It was concluded that gesture training has a positive effect on improving children’s intonation. Furthermore, the combination of gesture and movement training could be a powerful teaching strategy in choral rehearsals.

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