Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academies, a national early-childhood education franchise with three decades of experience, has adopted a unique music curriculum called ColorSoundation for its franchises across the U.S. This teaching system was developed by Los Angeles-based musician and teacher Shiho Yamamoto to teach very young children the fundamentals of music through the integration and interplay of colors with sounds.
Yamamoto is also the Founder of the West Los Angeles-based Conservatory of Performing Arts, a school that specializes in offering progressive academic music lessons to a diverse range of young students living in Southern California. She developed ColorSoundation in 2005 as a process that blends singing, playing and ear training – along with the illustrated activities of seven colorful, original animated characters and the integration of color-coded stickers and instructional booklets – to capture and hold the interest of young children.
“We saw very positive testimonials from the owners of several of our franchise school locations and their parents during our pilot program, and we learned that ColorSoundation was very successful. We have been searching for a strong music curriculum to offer young students in all of our schools and felt that ColorSoundation was a natural fit,” says Bob Kirschner, COO of Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academies. “With many public schools eliminating music and arts programs in recent years, we know that parents want their children to be exposed to music, and the ColorSoundation program fills that void. The methodology behind it blends perfectly with our curriculum, which focuses on increasing the ‘brain waves’ of young children through educational activities to develop their brain functions.”
Yamamoto added, “We are thrilled to have been endorsed and embraced by the Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academies!” says Yamamoto. “Children reach a greater understanding of music by focusing first on the development of the ‘ear’ and singing voice, and then by concentrating on rhythm and musical notation. Our ColorSoundation process offers lessons which are broken into small steps, and interactive games, so as to not overwhelm children with too much information at once. These lessons allow students to absorb and grasp the fundamentals of music through voice, handbells and basic percussion instruments, in efforts to ultimately interest them in choosing an instrument to play when they get older.”
Kids ‘R’ Kids will begin to market and promote this special music program to all of its 160 franchise schools across the country during the weeks and months ahead.
