Written by TP Staff Member Emma Grover
Picture this: It’s the week after Labor Day, the first official week of dance classes. Your dancer is dressed in new dance clothes and shoes. The lobby is full of tutus and glitter, and people and excitement. You snap some pictures, watch your child hurry into their class, and think, “This is so fun!” And it’s true! Dance is SO much fun, especially for our youngest dancers. But did you know that dance also helps students develop academic skills? That’s true, too! There are so many ways that dance supports young children (here meaning ages 2-8), in addition to socially and creatively.
1. Dance supports mathematical development in early and middle childhood.
As adults, when we think of math, we think of algebra and geometry (and many of us cringe at the thought!). When we consider math that young children should be learning, we mostly think about counting, addition, and subtraction. But did you know that, developmentally speaking, math, music, and movement go hand in hand?
Music is one of the first ways infants experience math, even before they’re old enough to speak. As infants, they’re rocked to sleep to the tune of a lullaby or the beat of worship music. As toddlers, they respond to the rhythm of music they hear. They may bang their blocks together to the rhythm of a song they hear while they’re playing, or jump up and down to the beat while playing freeze dance.
What does all of this have to do with math? Matching a beat develops one-to-one correspondence, which is the ability to match one number to one object. If a child knows the sequence to count to ten but counts a set of three blocks as being five, it means they’re still developing one-to-one correspondence. One-to-one correspondence is key to learning addition and subtraction in kindergarten. Keeping a beat by clapping, humming, jumping, twirling, or skipping along to it helps build the neural pathways kids need for one-to-one correspondence, even before they can count.
2. Music and dance also help students learn and anticipate patterns.
For example, students might alternate clapping and jumping across the floor in Twirl Hippity Hop, or work on patting their knees then clapping their hands in Twirl Ballet. One of our favorite silly songs, “Hello My Name is Joe,” is a building pattern where students first must push the button with one hand, then both hands, then one foot, then both feet, and so on. As students move into Primary and Level 1 classes, they learn to recognize patterns of verses and choruses, and repeating patterns of movement in their recital choreography.
Patterns are essential to algebraic thinking later on in life. When students work on graphing lines, identifying slopes, and finding limits in high school algebra, what they’re really doing is describing very complicated mathematical patterns. Giving kids the chance to explore patterns in early and middle childhood develops a firm foundation to explore this concept deeper later on. The most easily-identifiable patterns that kids encounter in their daily life are visual patterns (alternating colors, shapes, and sizes). But dance gives them the opportunity to explore auditory and kinesthetic patterns, which will deepen the neural pathways of pattern understanding in their brains.
Young dancers at Turning Pointe learn math in class by:
● Clapping to the beat of music (one-to-one correspondence)
● Performing “Fun Songs” where every movement is coordinated to the rhythm of the music (one-to-one correspondence)
● Alternating steps across the floor in a predictable pattern (pattern development)
● Singing and dancing to silly songs that repeat the same lyrics over and over with slight variation (pattern development)
3. Dance supports higher-level thinking and healthy brain development.
When you watch your preschooler’s dance teacher encourage them to wave their right hand on the left side of their body and vice versa week after week, you may wonder, “What’s the point?” You might feel similarly when you watch your elementary school dancer’s teacher patiently work with them on turning a particular direction as they twirl across the floor.
Neurologically speaking, our brains are divided into two hemispheres that communicate with each other through the corpus callosum, a bundle of neurons and fibers that join them together. The right side of our brain controls the left side of our body, and the left side of the brain controls the right side of our body. The right side of the brain houses functions like attention, and reasoning, while the left side mostly houses language skills. In order to be creative problem solvers and put abstract ideas into language, the two sides of our brain have to be really good at talking to each other.
Believe it or not, this is heavily connected to why you see your preschool dancer touching their right toe with their left hand, reaching over their head to the other side of their body, and crossing their arms to give themselves a hug. These are all actions which require them to cross their midline.
As preschoolers, children’s brains are in a rapid phase of development. Their brains will change the most over the shortest period of time between birth and age 5. During this phase, the strength and size of the corpus callosum are being developed, which will impact how easy it is for them to use that corpus callosum in the future. By doing stretches and fun activities that require them to cross their midline, they are strengthening the ability for the two sides of their brain to talk to each other!
When older dancers work on turning different directions or using different transitions to dance their way up and down from the floor, they are continuing to strengthen this connection. Instead of reaching across their midline, they’re now turning over it. Additionally, different patterns of turning movement build spatial intelligence, or the ability to control and orient your body relating to the space around you.
Young dancers at Turning Pointe develop healthy brains when they:
● Crossing their midline (stretching over their head or across their body)
● Turning over their midline (various leaps and turns that require them to practice turning different directions, especially if they must turn one way and then the other)
4. Dance supports fine and gross motor skills in early and middle childhood.
Have you ever wondered why your preschooler spends a portion of class sitting on the ground copying the teacher’s hand motions? Have you wondered why your elementary school dancer’s teacher puts so much emphasis on dancing with their arms and their legs at the same time?
Both of these things, and so much of everything else we do in dance, relate to fine (small) and gross (large) motor (movement) skills. Kids develop motor skills best by moving, which is what we’re all about! In dance, we target specific domains of motor function. This is great news for your student, because it means that their teacher is likely to identify and work on any motor struggles they may have. Take balance, for example; many of our dancers come into their first classes struggling with balance. Teachers notice this and will then work with students to develop their balance abilities, and we often see a huge amount of growth over the course of the year.
Fine motor skills in our preschool dance classes are particularly important. We frequently use ‘silly songs’ that fall under the category of finger plays. This means that the emphasis is on helping the student manipulate their hands and fingers in new ways. Finger plays develop foundational fine motor skills that will assist young children in learning how to form letters in kindergarten. Strong fine motor skills in preschool lead to better letter formation, handwriting, and hand-eye coordination in elementary school.
Young dancers at Turning Pointe develop motor skills and coordination by:
● Dancing with their hands or fingers (fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination)
● Practice skills over and over again; repetition leads to better body control
● Moving their bodies in ways they don’t in their everyday life (turning and jumping in specific ways, stretching in specific ways)
● Paying attention to and practice small details of movement in choreography
Believe it or not, this is a short list! There are so many more ways that dance classes support children’s healthy academic, physical, social, and emotional development. Allowing your child to dance is truly a gift! So the next time your dancer gets in the car grinning after class and says, “I love dance,” know that what they’re really saying is “I love learning,” and Turning Pointe is the perfect place for them to grow.