The National Singing Programme for primary schools in England: an initial baseline study

Welch, Graham; Himonides, Evangelos; Papageorgi, Ioulia; Saunders, Jo; Rinta, Tiija; Stewart, Claire; Preti, Costanza; Lani, Jennifer; Vraka, Maria; Hill, J. S.

doi:10.1080/14613800802699523

Cited by 33 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This has been reported elsewhere, as the data analyses (including factor analyses) are extensive and beyond the space available in this paper (see iMerc, 2007;Welch et al, 2008). Another focus was to evaluate the possible impact of a specific Sing Up intervention on participant children in this early phase of the programme's enactment.…”

Section: Assessment Protocolmentioning

confidence: 98%

Researching the first year of the National Singing Programme Sing Up in England: An initial impact evaluation.

Welch¹,

Himonides²,

Saunders³

et al. 2011

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain

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The article reports on the first year of an independent evaluation ofthe National Singing Programme 'Sing Up' (2007-2011 in England. The aim of the Sing Up Programme is to provide all primary-aged children (up to the age of 11 years) with opportunities for singing under high quality vocal leadership both within their school curriculum and outside of school on a regular basis. As part of the evaluation, members of the research team msited 81 schools across England, and assessed the singing behamor and development of 3,762 individual children using the combination of two established rating scales. The focus was on providing an initial profile of children's singing prior to the launch of the National Programme and, subsequently later in the first year, to conduct a small number of additional visits to see if there was any evidence of early impact. The results confirm that children's singing is subject to developmental processes, with variations related to sex, age and ethnicity. There is also some evidence that, ru)twithstanding such variations, a programme of sustained singing education can have a positive benefit on children's singing behaviors and development.

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Section: Assessment Protocolmentioning

confidence: 98%

Researching the first year of the National Singing Programme Sing Up in England: An initial impact evaluation.

Welch¹,

Himonides²,

Saunders³

et al. 2011

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain

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“…Three-year olds will mix elements of songs from their culture with their own idiosyncratic vocal improvizations, singing “outline” songs that follow the general contour of culture-specific melodies (Moog, 1976; Davidson, 1994; Hargreaves, 1996), which may be akin to the tendency for 2–3 year olds to eliminate function words, but not the content words in speech (Gerken et al, 1990). Singing ability continues to improve until about 11 years of age (e.g., Howard et al, 1994; Welch, 2002), though ability improves faster and to a greater extent in cultures that emphasize singing (Kreutzer, 2001; Welch, 2009). …”

Section: Music and Early Language Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Music and Early Language Acquisition

Brandt¹,

Gebrian²,

Slevc³

2012

Front. Psychology

196

121

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Language is typically viewed as fundamental to human intelligence. Music, while recognized as a human universal, is often treated as an ancillary ability – one dependent on or derivative of language. In contrast, we argue that it is more productive from a developmental perspective to describe spoken language as a special type of music. A review of existing studies presents a compelling case that musical hearing and ability is essential to language acquisition. In addition, we challenge the prevailing view that music cognition matures more slowly than language and is more difficult; instead, we argue that music learning matches the speed and effort of language acquisition. We conclude that music merits a central place in our understanding of human development.

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“…Earlier efforts focused either on interventions that might help students develop the skills (Joyner, 1969;Yank Porter, 1977) or age-related changes in singing accuracy and proposed models for how such skills might develop (Welch, 1985;1986). More recently, music educators have explored the influences of training, maturation, and task difficulty on children's singing accuracy (Demorest & Clements, 2007;Nichols, 2013;Welch et al, 2009) and use of singing voice (Rutkowski & Miller, 2003). Researchers in psychology and cognitive neuroscience have become interested in poor pitch singing in adults as a kind of cognitive deficit, and have begun to explore the various conditions under which people have difficulty singing accurately Hutchins & Peretz, 2012;Loui, Guenther, Mathys, & Schlaug, 2008;Pfordresher & Brown, 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%