23.7. 1993 Vitoria-Gasteiz / Spain - World Federation of Music Therapy

door". He was so engrossed in making music, that he
didn't realise that he was exercising and sharpening his
visual perception and discrimination, and his auditory
perception and discrimination. His visual memory was
storing up a treasury of words. His auditory memory
too. He was exercising his eye-hand co-ordination. He
was leaming to concentrate. The list of leaming skills
was endless !
After about 20 minutes of musical fun, David
stopped playing and said, "You are suppposed to be
teaching me to read.”
I replied "What will your parents and the
headmistress say?"
answered.
“l think they'll say that you are very kind", he
"Well, shall we do a little reading, so that we
can honestly say that we did do some work ?" I asked.
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He readily agreed. His barriers were down. I had
his whole-hearted support and co-operation : he was
motivated. These are surely very important aspects of
leaming. I made flashcards, each one bearing a word
from the first song. He read them all ! I made flashcards
of the words of the second song "Frere Jacques". He
knew them too. I shuffled the cards, but he was still
word perfect. The school-bell rang for the end of the
lesson, and David went off with a contented smile.
Two days later, David had another lesson. lt
followed the pattern of the first lesson. He played and
sang the three songs, hesitantly at first, until he could
play them without any pauses for the chord changes.
Again, my finger moved under the words. Again, he was
having a reading lesson in disguise. I had preparad
some songs to add to his repertoire, and their mattching
flashcards, so when he said, after about 20 minutes,
"We'd better do some reading now.", I was ready to flash
the cards with the new words printed on them. He knew